Legacy of the Dark Master: Srs1, Bk1: Thunderclap
by Buizel Rubeda
Summary: Peace: The defeat of the Dark Master has ushered in a new era, with Spyro, Malefor's vanquisher, at its helm. But darkness stalks the realm, and an assassin roams the land: A criminal syndicate seeks to extirpate the root of hope and to plunge the world back into lucrative anarchy. Will Spyro succeed in foiling the criminals' plot? Only one thing is certain: Death is in the air.
1. All is Well

**NOTE:** What follows is a somewhat ampler summary of the story herein set forth as well as a basic outline thereof and also of the background information necessary to understand the Spyro plot; if you do not wish to read this (although even Spyro fans could do with reading the first and last sections), simply scroll down until you see **CHAPTER**** 1**

(_Oh, and sorry about some of the formatting: FanFiction's strong points apparently do not yet include the seamless conversion of complex Word text into equally ornate HTML, and my attempts to manually edit the HTML code itself have proven fruitless; so, please accept my apologies, as well as suffer through the awkward presence of the subsequent and rather weighty outline, as I had no other effective means of publicizing it, since FanFiction also does not allow the creation of such summaries as incontingent entities.)_

**SUMMARY**

Peace: The Dark Master is dead, and after decades of near constant war, the dragon realms finally collapse into an exhausted state of tranquility. Spyro, the shining savior of the realms, the conqueror of Malefor, the symbol of the dawning era of hope, takes the helm of the Dragon Army, and the Temple has finally been restored to its original splendor and purpose of educating dragons from all over.

But all is not as it appears: Evil, the ever-present contender against good, lurks beneath the surface in the form of the sinister scheme of a vicious criminal organization, a scheme bent upon poisoning the newfound flower of hope. An assassin stalks the land, bringing terror to the calmness of night. The threat is more expansive than Spyro realizes, and it will take a great catastrophe to reveal the profundity of the plot.

Will Spyro succeed in his race against time and discover the identity of the assassin released by the syndicate? How many will die before the killer is stopped? Will the syndicate succeed in immolating the new and vulnerable order, tearing it apart from the inside out?

One thing is certain: Death is in the air.

_(What follows is an outline containing background information necessary to understanding the plotline of this book; herein is also set forth a set of disclaimers that necessarily recognize the ownership of the book's elements.)_

**I. ****General Information**

**A ****Perspective — third-person limited**

**1. **Multiple characters' perspectives will be used**2. **However, this is not an omniscient perspective, as mystery is highly integral to the plot

**B ****Genre — fantasy fiction, mystery**

**1. **There is a hint of romance, obviously, since much of the book concerns Spyro, Cynder, and their children**2. **However, the book is not strictly a romance as there is not much of the destiny attribute to it

**C ****FanFiction Rating — M (revised: T)**

**1. **I wasn't exactly sure whether I should classify this book as T or M; I settled on the latter primarily due to violence: After all, one cannot to any satisfactory degree of accuracy describe draconic altercations without incurring a bit of gore possibly unsuited for younger teenagers (although I do not profess to be naïve enough to presume that thirteen-year-olds are not involved in much worse…).**2. **The M also stands for suggestive themes, as – though there is nothing explicit in the book – there are moments (and there may be more in the future) in which "adult situations" are perhaps inferable.

**i. **Obviously, these "adult situations" or their precursors involve Spyro and Cynder, so forgive me if there are some perhaps cheesy scenes with these two: It is a necessary characterization element.

**3. **To these ends, I decided that the M rating was the safest**4. **(I considered the MA rating, but I thought that that may deter readers and give a rather misleading vibe — the book contains violence and adult situations (not in the sexual sense) and themes, but I do not consider it overly traumatic.)

**5.** _Given that I have recently been informed that the M rating is specifically geared towards explicit and/or overly gory material, I am amending the rating of this book to T; that said, if something strikes you as inappropriate for this rating (either innuendo or gore), please tell me, as this change of rating is under an experimental basis._

**D ****Themes — lying and deception, codes of honor**

**E ****Prominent symbols — weather, light contrasted with dark, divergent nature of darkness (literal and figurative)**

**II. ****Background Information**

**A ****General**

**1. **The events of this book occur twenty years after the events of _The Legend of Spyro: The Dawn of the Dragon_; the events thereof are assumed to have transpired over a period of about one month; those of _The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning_, over a course of a month, two years after Spyro's birth; and those of _The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night_, over a course of six months. Thus, all in all, Spyro and Cynder (who are presumed to have been born at the same time) are aged about twenty-four years.**2. **In the eighteen and one half years preceding the events of this book, Spyro and Cynder have had three children: Arial, their firstborn, a daughter now aged about eighteen; Lucas, a son aged about seven; and Rose (named after a dragon pupil of Spyro's who was killed in war), their youngest daughter aged about two. (For details concerning these characters and certain others, refer to section III, "Characters," below.)

**B ****Historical**

**1. **Only a few months following the end of the War of Malefor (the war in which the Dark Master Malefor was defeated), a second war – known purely as the Dark War – erupted across the realms: The war was waged between the remnants of the Dragon Army (a general name I have given to the forces seen in _The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon_), their newfound allies in a collection of islands to the north of the Dragon Temple and to the west of the three islands encountered in _The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning_, and an insurgent force of mages, a slipshod organization formed from the aggregate remnants of prior forces, such as Gaul's ape army (see section II, subsection C) – those that evaded Malefor's curse – and what monsters remain of Malefor's hordes.**2. **The Dark War lasted seven years, and it was during the third year of the war that Spyro and Cynder's daughter Arial was born; with the conclusion of the war, the Dragon Army has experienced a period of about thirteen years of peace.**3. **However, the price of the war is high: After over a decade of constant warfare, the Dragon Army is in tatters and only beginning to heal; the three remaining guardians, Volteer, Cyril, and Terrador, were killed during the final year of the war, and Spyro alone remains; he is currently the leader of the Dragon Army (Commander in Chief).

**C ****Foundational**

**1. **This subsection is devoted to a quick (well, maybe not _so_ quick) overview of the _Legend of Spyro_ trilogy upon which this story is based; events of this trilogy are herein put forth so that those who are not aware may acquaint themselves with them. (It is advisable to do this as there may be allusions in this book to the trilogy.) The subsequent bullets of this subsection will each represent a single installment of the trilogy, and any additions or modifications that I have made will be noted.**2. **_The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning_

**i. **This installment recounts the history of Spyro's birth; the game indicates that, for one reason or another, Spyro's egg along with many others was gathered at the Dragon Temple (or perhaps some other secure location — it is unclear). When the Dark Master's armies attack the Temple, Ignitus, the Fire Guardian (one of four, each representing a primary element — Fire, Electricity, Ice, and Earth), sent Spyro's egg down the Silver River (I am not actually sure if that is the name of the river; either way, it is the name that will be used in this book). It is during the same attack that Cynder's egg is stolen by the Dark Armies, implying that the Dark Master is at this point already imprisoned in Convexity (an interdimensional realm in which he was bound and from which only Cynder may free him).

**ii. **After this, two years (the time period is ambiguous: I have assumed this brief period due to the slightly mature but still childlike nature of Spyro in this game) pass: Spyro was born (_hatched_, technically — this semi-interchangeability of terms is common) shortly after the narrow escape at the Temple, at the same time as a dragonfly whose parents took Spyro in. This dragonfly – Sparx – is Spyro's "brother." In these two years, Spyro grew up with his brother in the swamps south of the Temple (the direction is arbitrary).

**iii. **One day in the swamp, during a rough-and-tumble game of hide-and-seek, Sparx is captured by a group of apes, and Spyro, in rage and fear, discovers his ability to breathe fire; this revelation leads his dragonfly "parents" to tell him of his birth (Spyro had heretofore believed himself to be a dragonfly), and the dismayed and confused dragon sets off on a trek to find himself. Sparx joins him.

**iv. **Spyro and Sparx, while on their journey, discover Ignitus hiding in a cave. He recounts to them the story of Cynder's rise to power as the Dark Master's slave; he tells them of her conquest of the dragon-held islands of Dante's Freezer, Tall Plains, and Munitions Forge; he also tells how she has captured the three other Guardians, Volteer (Electricity), Cyril (Ice), and Terrador (Earth), for purposes unknown. Ignitus also apprises Spyro of his destiny as the purple dragon (I have omitted in this book the part of Ignitus's dialogue which indicates the frequency of the purple dragon's birth) and at the same time expresses his despair of ever resolving the conflict with the Dark Master.

**v. **Spyro, desiring to know more of his past, undertakes the destiny which Ignitus has offered, and the three travel to the Dragon Temple, meeting Cynder's forces en route; throughout the story Spyro is constantly battling the apes under her command.

**vi. **At the temple, Ignitus trains Spyro to use his Fire abilities and then dispatches him to Dante's Freezer to rescue Volteer…but not before teaching the young dragon to fly.

**vii. **Spyro makes his way through Dante's Freezer accompanied by Sparx, has his first real sighting of Cynder, and rescues Volteer.

**viii. **Upon returning, Volteer informs Ignitus of his suspicion that Cynder is using the Guardians as energy sources to open a portal to Convexity and trains Spyro in the Electricity powers that he discovered on Dante's Freezer.

**ix. **Spyro is then sent to Tall Plains, where he meets Kain the Attlawan (a sort of llama-like, bipedal species who live in the jungle) and discovers his Ice powers. After meeting Kain several times along the way, Spyro finally rescues Cyril and returns him to the Temple. (I have omitted the part where the Attlawans want to worship Spyro and Sparx for their service to them — it is irrelevant, and, personally, I found it a little bit awkward.)

**x. **Upon returning, Cyril adds his account to Volteer's, and Cynder's plan begins to coalesce; Cyril instructs Spyro in the use of Ice, and Spyro is then dispatched to Munitions Forge to rescue Terrador.

**xi. **After fighting his way into the forge, racing against time to avoid the eruption of the volcano Boyzitbig, _and_ rescuing the mole-like, strangely French-sounding Manweersmalls from the oppressive hands (or paws) of Cynder's apes, Spyro (and Sparx) confront the leader of the ape contingent, defeat him, and are about to rescue Terrador when Cynder makes a sudden and highly dramatic personal appearance.

**xii. **Cynder chases Spyro through the depths of the island, and at the climax of her pursuit, Ignitus steps in, and both he and Cynder vanish in the mounting eruption; Terrador takes Spyro and Sparx back to the Temple.

**xiii. **Back at the Temple, Spyro fights the grief he feels at losing Ignitus (who has grown to be like a father to him); Terrador consoles him and teaches him to harness his newfound Earth powers, and then Spyro sets out for Cynder's palace (the location of which is unknown and irrelevant), determined to rescue Ignitus at all costs.

**xiv. **After fighting his way through an army of apes, Spyro confronts Cynder; they fight, but Cynder breaks things off quickly, having drained Ignitus's power (the final piece to her puzzle) and opened a portal to Convexity.

**xv. **As Cynder makes her escape, Ignitus confides in Spyro the secret to her past: She was born at the same time as Spyro, but was abducted as an egg and bewitched to do Malefor's bidding (Malefor's name is not known until _Dawn of the Dragon_) because Malefor needed a dragon to free him from the prison to which dragons had banished him. Spyro struggles with the ethical crisis of confronting an enemy who has no control of what she is doing, but he does not have much time to fret over this: He pursues Cynder through the portal into Convexity.

**xvi. **Spyro makes his way to the place where Cynder intends to open the gate to the Dark Master's prison (perhaps a prison within Convexity itself, or possibly beyond Convexity, which is described as an interdimensional void, a world between worlds); the two fight, and Spyro, summoning an immense power from within him, defeats her, breaking the spell that binds her to the Dark Master.

**xvii. **The interruption of the unsealing process causes a sort of cataclysmic collapse of the portal, and Spyro only barely manages to seize the now child – and unconscious – Cynder (Malefor's spell had turned her into an adult form) and carry her out of Convexity and back to the "real" world. (It is very important to note that Sparx wanted to leave Cynder behind, but Spyro objected, saying that she only tried to kill them because of the Dark Master's hold over her. This sets the stage for the interrelationships of the three in later games.)

**xviii. **The surge of energy apparently temporarily disabled Spyro's powers (used as the reasoning behind his having to relearn them all in _The Eternal Night_), and despite the happy, weary reunion, the joyous atmosphere is tinged by a single worry: What of the Dark Master?

**xix. **It is unclear if the failed attempt to open the portal weakened the bonds holding the Dark Master, or if it had some other effect or no effect at all.

**xx. **Spyro and Cynder end up together, watching the stars, wondering about Malefor, and expressing that they both have "a bad feeling."

**3. **_The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night_

**i. **The events of _The Eternal Night_ transpire a mere two weeks or so after the events of _A New Beginning_.

**ii. **For the purposes of my own story, the events of _The Eternal Night_ are largely irrelevant (they did not advance the plot much anyway), and so the detail of this overview will be minute compared to that of the previous one; also, much detail will be altered.

**iii. **Prior to the events of the actual game, there is a period in which Spyro and Cynder grow closer as friends. They also meet several other dragons; discover the existence of the Northern Isles, a quadruplet of isles lying to the west of the three islands of _A New Beginning_; and run into a sect of Gaul's forces, bands of mages which he uses as his secret police.

**a. **This information is entirely of my own design and is primarily to set the stage for the events of the Dark War.

**iv. **Months pass, and almost half a year after the events of _A New Beginning_, the actual game plotline picks up:

**v. **_The Eternal Night_ begins with Cynder leaving the Dragon Temple, saying that she does not belong and that she must find herself and her home; she departs despite Spyro's attempts to make her stay.

**vi. **In a dream/vision sort of thing, Spyro meets a mysterious, almost surreal dragon known only as the Chronicler, who teaches him to manipulate time (an ability which is not stated as applying solely to the purple dragon; thus, in my book, it is considered attainable by all dragons) and slowly unlocks the powers buried in him since the end of _A New Beginning_.

**vii. **The Dragon Temple is attacked by Gaul's armies. (Gaul being the emergent leader of the ape armies that were left leaderless once Cynder was removed from the Dark Master's spell.) After defending his home, Spyro links up with the Guardians, and he is sent into hiding; the forces at the Temple scatter across the realms, and the war against the Dark Master takes on a guerrilla nature.

**viii. **Spyro seeks out the Chronicler and ends up captured by pirates on the northeastern shores of the realm (the direction is arbitrary); fighting his way out of the pirates' grasp, he receives a missive from a mysterious "ally" named Hunter the Avalaran, who assures him that he can count upon him as a friend and compatriot against the Dark Master.

**ix. **With no information on this Hunter character, Spyro continues his journey to seek out the Chronicler, along the way progressing in his powers and gradually piecing together Gaul's plan to resurrect Malefor: A once-sacred but now defiled mountain known as the Well of Souls carries a special enchantment that blurs the lines between the physical and spirit realms, enabling beings to cross from beyond the veil and take on corporeal form. The Well of Souls is only active on a certain night – the Eternal Night – in which a lunar eclipse will cast its rays into a chamber in the center of the mountains fortress, breaking the physical-spiritual boundary.

**x. **Spyro finally meets the Chronicler, who tests him before finally revealing the truth: Malefor will rise again, for it is only by Spyro's hand that he can be truly defeated. The Chronicler also informs Spyro upon the latter's interrogations that Cynder's destiny is entwined with his now, and that she, too, will play a part in Malefor's destruction; at this, Spyro is determined to seek out Cynder and make sure that she is safe. He declares that he is heading to the Well of Souls, as he fears that Cynder has been captured by Gaul to be subjugated once more to Malefor once he is freed.

**xi. **The Chronicler attempts to keep Spyro in his safe haven (which appears to be beyond space-time and inaccessible to any but he), saying that he must be kept safe until his destiny calls him out, as he is not yet ready to face Malefor; but Spyro insists, saying that he will make his own path, prophecy or no prophecy…and by so doing, he will fulfill that prophecy.

**xii. **Spyro journeys to the Well of Souls (the location is obscure, but I have situated it just south of the Enchanted Forest – see the subsection for _Dawn of the Dragon_ – buried in a mountain range) and battles his way inside, eventually confronting Gaul, who attempts to turn Cynder against Spyro.

**xiii. **Initially playing along, Cynder then turns on Gaul but is defeated; Gaul then challenges Spyro himself. The two battle, but they are interrupted by the lunar eclipse — the Eternal Night. As Malefor begins to rise, Spyro absorbs the Dark energy that is emitted by the former's resurrection, turning into Dark Spyro (essentially Spyro but under the influence of Dark magic), using his powers to destroy Gaul.

**xiv. **Cynder wrenches Spyro free of the sinister beam of energy that has been formed by the lunar eclipse, but before they or Sparx (who is with them) can leave, the roof begins to collapse, and the exit is sealed. As the rocks fall around them, Spyro uses the magic that the Chronicler has taught him to seal the three of them in a magical crystal — a sort of temporal stasis that preserves them until the crystal is broken.

**xv. **The Well of Souls collapses, all of its ape inhabitants being killed, and Spyro, Cynder, and Sparx remain there, sealed in the crystal.

**xvi. **_The Eternal Night_ ends with the Chronicler soliloquizing about how Spyro was fated to be sealed in the crystal because he was not ready to face Malefor yet, and how he will emerge when he _is_ ready. The Chronicler laments that Spyro will have to face the Dark Master at the peak of the latter's power (for Malefor is already sweeping his dark armies across the realms), but then consoles himself with the knowledge that Spyro does indeed "have friends."

**4. **_The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon_

**i. **_Dawn of the Dragon_ spans a very short period of time (for my purposes, it is about a month, although the game seems to imply a much shorter duration — perhaps only a few days), from the time Spyro, Cynder, and Sparx are freed from their crystal prison to the very end, the aftermath of the Dark Master's death.

**ii. **The final installment of the trilogy begins with a group of Grublins (strange, amorphous, almost insectile monsters under the command of the Dark Master; it would appear that Grublins were created or summoned by Malefor to replace the apes as a main body of his forces) breaking the crystal that holds Spyro, Cynder, and Sparx in a temporal stasis. (It is unknown how exactly the Grublins discovered the location of said crystal, or why it took them three years to do so; one could imagine that the chaos of the destruction of the Well of Souls and the subsequent havoc wreaked by the newly liberated Dark Master would have postponed a search for the purple dragon and his compatriots.) The Grublins bind the two young dragons together by a magical chain and take all three to some sort of holding area (although in the game it resembles a sort of gladiatorial arena), where they are to be detained, presumably until Malefor arrives to deal with them himself.

**iii. **Spyro, Cynder, and Sparx fight their way out of this holding area, incurring the assistance of Hunter the Avalaran (see subsection C, class 3, paragraph viii) to deal with a monolithic golem. The three join Hunter after beating back the golem, and the Avalaran informs them that he was dispatched by Ignitus (called "the Elder Dragon," a title that is not used in my book) to locate the three when Spyro did not return from his journey — this transpired three years earlier. (It is unknown how quickly Ignitus discovered that something may have happened to Spyro – presumably within a month or two after his not returning from his journey – or why exactly it took Hunter three years to locate him.) This information shocks Spyro, but upon examining himself (these subsequent details are of my own making) he realizes that he has grown, as have Cynder and Sparx, and that he feels older.

**a. **Note that the physical differences that are attributed here and by most people to the maturation that would have occurred over three years are actually a side effect of the game being produced by different companies/designers/whatever than the first two.

**iv. **The party of four begin to make their way out of the strange catacombs which are all that remain of the vast Well of Souls; they are separated momentarily by the golem's reappearance, and when they are reunited, Spyro and Cynder, locating a magical crystal (the details concerning these are left out of my book for rather obvious reasons: They are a game-specific item that has little place in a literary work), commune with the Chronicler (it is unknown _why_ the Chronicler is the steward over their powers and destinies — although he does seem to oversee the ebb and flow of time) and their powers, initially inert, are reawakened.

**v. **This is fortuitous timing, as they are attacked, and after defeating their assailants, the party continues its trek toward the surface. Throughout this journey, there is an air of maturation to the dragons' attitudes (lamentably not to Sparx's), echoing their new ages (see section II, subsection D). As they are nearing the exit, the golem attacks again, and Spyro and Cynder spot a Dark crystal on its arm that, according to Hunter "radiates Dark magic"; they destroy the crystal, apparently wounding the golem. (In my book, there is no real need to refer to these crystals, but it should be known that I have not copied over their enervative properties.) The party then flees and, after a third escape from the golem, narrowly manages to reach the surface.

**vi. **(The entire following section is of my own design.) Pausing for a moment, Hunter informs Spyro and Cynder with dispassionate brevity that the war is not going well and that the city of Warfang remains the last bastion of the Dragon Army. Warfang lies to the far south of the Forest of Noire (a name of my own design; the game terms the place "Twilight Falls"), where the party has exited; however, Hunter says that Malefor's armies, which have encircled Warfang in preparation for a final series of assaults, are blocking a direct overland route to the city; thus, the party will have to circle north, through a trial to the Enchanted Forest to the Valley of Avalar, where a secret passage (a remnant of the Dark Master's earlier reign of terror) leads underground all the way to the city.

**vii. **As the four travelers exit via a waterfall cave passage (Shimmer Falls of the Starry River — yes, the names are not particularly original, but it is unimportant), they descend into the Forest of Noire (a sort of extension of the Enchanted Forest, separated therefrom by rugged mountains), where they fight their way through a small contingent of Grublins and other minions of the Dark Master. After scaling a cliff, the four take a trail that will lead them to the Enchanted Forest.

**viii. **Resting for a short spell on a second cliff, overlooking the southern edge of the Enchanted Forest, the party discusses the progress of the war: Hunter informs the three that the golem that they so narrowly avoided was no ordinary creature, that it was bewitched by powerful Dark Magic to do Malefor's bidding. He adds that the latter's ascension to power was fearsome and bloody, and many perished in the vicious fighting that erupted all over the realms; Ignitus and the other Guardians fought with all of their strength, but without the purple dragon that everyone somehow knew was fated to defeat the Dark Master, morale continued to sink, and the Dragon Army – despite its most valorous efforts – began to give way. Three years later, the war was primarily a guerrilla struggle, with Warfang and the outlying semiarid territories being the only real battlefield.

**ix. **As Hunter laments the death and destruction thus far sown, Spyro expresses a great penitence, feeling himself responsible for not having been there to stop Malefor. Cynder reminds him that the past cannot be changed, and that there is no use fretting over it. Hunter agrees solemnly and adds that they are lucky to even be alive. Suddenly, before anyone can say anything else, something (presumably a spell or some kind of gas bomb type of device) incapacitates all four of them.

**x. **When Spyro awakens the following morning, he finds himself and the others imprisoned in the village of Avalar several miles north of the cliff where they had been. They have been captured by Chieftain Prowlus, the churlish and somewhat brutish leader of the Avalarans. Before, however, they can inquire as to the reason for their detention, wyverns (Malefor's air forces) attack the village, along with several squads of Grublins. Prowlus, at Spyro and Cynder's earnest request and assurance that they can help, releases the two dragons, who quickly neutralize the threat.

**xi. **Upon taking a survey of the damage, Prowlus learns that Meadow, an Avalaran who apparently went out to collect herbs earlier that morning, is missing; Prowlus, not wanting to expose the rest of the Avalarans to the danger of the forest, opts not to dispatch a search party.

**xii. **Spyro intervenes, requesting that he, Cynder, Sparx, and Hunter be allowed to search for Meadow; they desire only their freedom in exchange for bringing back the lost Avalaran. Prowlus agrees but stipulates that Hunter, subject to Avalaran law (which apparently he has broken: The game does not specify his infraction, and I have invented it to be consorting with dragons, whom the Avalarans generally fear and avoid), must remain behind. Spyro agrees, and he, Cynder, and Sparx set out into the forest.

**a. **As a simple literary note, the ambiance as the three set off into the Enchanted Forest is one of wistful nostalgia (the game echoes this by playing a slightly touched up and more dramatic version of the melody which introduces _The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning_).**b. **There is an air of coming home, of somber remembrance, a gravity that is difficult to put into words and would take paragraphs to accurately describe.

**xiii. **The three search up and down the valley, eventually finding a cave in which Meadow lies helpless with a broken leg. Spyro and the others are ambushed, and once they have warded off the attackers, they speak with Meadow, who informs them that they may be able to transport him to the village via the Silver River.

**xiv. **To do this, the three must obtain a raft from the far end of the valley and drift it downriver towards him; however, the raft is locked above water, and the two orbs (of a highly dense substance that the game labels _adamantium_ or something of the like) that release the locking mechanisms are themselves locked in a supply cache tucked in a narrow mountain cleft, the key to which cache belongs to a hermit who used to be among the Avalarans, a hermit who lives in an adjoining sub-valley, the entrance to which is sealed in the wall of a cliff on the southwestern (the direction is arbitrary) end of Avalar.

**xv. **After Sparx comments on the strange intricacy of this arrangement, Spyro vows to retrieve the raft and bring Meadow home. The three depart and commence with the arduous process of rescuing the stranded Avalaran, harrowed every step of the way by Malefor's minions.

**xvi. **When the party reaches the hermit's abode, sequestered at the upper edge of an outcropping in a narrow mountain cleft, they are attacked by odd, ghostly, skeletal figures. (The music in the game is the same as that of Tall Plains from _A New Beginning_, giving the area a wild and feral ambiance.) Once they have defeated the swarm of wraiths, the hermit appears and informs them almost amusedly that those spirits of the darkness are in fact the apes that used to serve Gaul, whose megalomania and lust for power brought Malefor's wrath upon him and upon his followers; while some apes escaped and became marauders in the woods, many were struck with Malefor's ghastly spell, forced to feed upon the energy of others to survive, never satisfied by their parasitism.

**xvii. **After this chilling dialogue, the hermit then addresses Cynder, claiming that though she possesses a different form (as the child/young adult that she now is), she cannot hide (in her eyes) that she is still the "Terror of the Skies" (the sobriquet which she earned as Malefor's slave). This greatly upsets Cynder, whose only desire is to surmount the burden of her past and to be vindicated. Spyro rises to her defense, dismissing the hermit curtly and expressing to Cynder his concern for her. After Cynder assures him that she is all right, Sparx casually informs them both that he has purloined the key to the supply cache while the hermit was berating Cynder.

**xviii. **Sparx's comic relief having lightened the atmosphere somewhat, the three return to the valley proper, acquire the orbs from the supply cache, release the raft, and tug it downriver to Meadow (all the while beating back Malefor's forces). Once they deliver Meadow safely to the village, Prowlus not-so-sincerely apologizes for his harsh and suspicious treatment of them; he releases them and Hunter, but, upon the latter's request, refuses to offer his alliance in the struggle against Malefor. The four depart for Warfang.

**a. **Just as a note: In my representation of these events, the party's sojourn in the Enchanted Forest lasted about two weeks (in the game it is essentially a single day).

**xix. **(Note: Many of the following details are of my own design; I have greatly altered the account of the Siege of Warfang.) Upon arriving in Warfang (for purposes of my historical account, the journey transpires over a twenty-four hour period), the party is met by the four Guardians plus other friends. The expected greetings and paroxysms are exchanged, and Cynder brings up the chain by which she and Spyro are bound; Ignitus examines it and confesses that he knows of no way to break it…but he adds that it will more than likely dissolve in its own time.

**xx. **After the reunion fades, the next ten days or so are spent with Spyro, Cynder, and Sparx learning the layout of the vast Dragon City and the progress of the war: They are apprised of the details of the Dragon Army's defeats and retreat to Warfang, and of the siege-and-guerrilla warfare that has become the norm.

**xxi. **After this brief respite (I inserted said hiatus to give ample time for Malefor to have discovered Spyro and Cynder's whereabouts), the Dark Armies attack the city, and Spyro and Cynder assist in the defense of the walls. Just when it appears that the dragons have reflected the attack, the golem from the catacombs reveals itself and begins a rampage across the city. Spyro and Cynder battle the golem, which defeats all four Guardians in turn, and they eventually manage to destroy it once and for all, effectively ending the battle for the day. After so narrowly beating back the Dark Master's fiendish forces, the Dragon Army relaxes slightly to recover its strength for the following morning, when undoubtedly the entire process will begin anew.

**xxii. **During the night, Malefor (through some sort of magical communication device, the origin and nature of which is unknown) declares that he has unlocked the secret to the Destroyer, an immense monster created for a single holocaustic purpose: to purge the Earth of all life. The Destroyer begins its immense circle (the Ring of Fire) around its home mountain (which is never named), upon the completion whereof it will destroy the Earth. Ignitus professes that he knows very little about this beast, and he also notes that the monster is moving too quickly to pursue and that to do so anyway would be to leave the city noticeably undefended.

**xxiii. **It is then that someone (I cannot remember who precisely proposes the idea, and it is irrelevant either way — if anyone knows, feel free to shareJ) suggests using the old tunnels beneath Warfang to intercept the monster near the coast of the Great Sea far to the east (the direction, as usual, is arbitrary, as is the identity of the ocean: I used a general name).

**xxiv. **The exact nature of these tunnels is quite mysterious: Apparently, the Dragon City was built on top of an older city built by moles (the actual city of Warfang was constructed jointly by both moles and dragons), but this city was abandoned for whatever reason. Strangely, however, it is implied that the dragons also utilized the city to train Malefor (why the underground city was used as a training site is completely unknown).

**xxv. **Spyro and Cynder, having slipped into the tunnels by a cleft in the wall, must release the locking mechanisms to the door — four statues' magic crystals must be returned to their slots. (Evidently, the tunnels either have been adapted or had been originally built as an escape route out of Warfang, and the doors, once sealed, can only be opened from within. This raises the question of why the doors were sealed in the first place. Again, little is known about the city.)

**xxvi. **Each crystal is protected by different sets of puzzles and strange, skeletal, lupine creatures (I added this detail myself) — this on top of the complications of cursed apes and Malefor's minions. The tunnels are riddled with catacombs and booby traps to be navigated.

**xxvii. **After making their arduous way throughout the tunnels, retrieving all four crystals, Spyro and Cynder open the doors, enabling most of what little remains of the Dragon Army to pass through.

**xxviii. **As the dragons move along the tunnel, Spyro confides in Ignitus that he has noticed many similarities between himself and Malefor (this is almost humorously similar to Harry Potter noting the same thing about himself and Voldemort in _Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets_J); Ignitus replies that there is a fundamental difference between the two at their core: their hearts are very disparate. This does not console Spyro very much, and he is left to wonder whether he is truly any different from the dragon whom he fights.

**xxix. **The Dragon Army reaches the mouth of the tunnel at daybreak, spotting the Destroyer bearing down upon their location on a cliff in the midst of a vast riverine chasm; again, the dragons wonder how they can stop it.

**xxx. **Cynder looks upriver and spots a huge dam that apparently was designed to occlude the river below for whatever reason (quite frankly, a dam on an ocean is almost preposterous in and of itself). Cynder suggests flooding the chasm so as to stop the Destroyer. Spyro readily gives his approval, and Ignitus deploys the dragon forces to attack the Destroyer in order to buy the two younger dragons as much time as possible.

**xxxi. **After a little comic relief from Sparx, the three race to the dam; after fighting off a cloud of wyverns set in to ambush them, Spyro and Cynder manage to open the gate that leads into the interior of the dam (after releasing a few measly floodgates). They fight their way to the top and release two larger floodgates, causing the pressure of the water to rupture the dam. (It seems strange that this is so: Why would the floodgates on the top of the dam be designed to produce this buildup of pressure? It is possible that all four floodgates were never to be opened up at the same time, and that this is what caused the dam to destabilize.)

**xxxii. **Fleeing the deluge of seawater, Spyro and Cynder link up with Ignitus in time to see the Destroyer paralyzed by the floodwaters; however, momentarily, the monster is attempting to drag itself out onto the opposite shore. Ignitus gives the order to attack the beast again while it is down and to find a way to defeat it once and for all.

**xxxiii. **Spyro and Cynder join the assault, flying all over the beast's body, trying to locate the many Dark crystals that apparently act as focal points — a sort of ligature that holds the Destroyer together. Battling their way meter by meter, the two dragons slowly and painfully ascend the beast's body, destroying crystals as they go; when they finally reach the crown, they discern that they must enter the heart of the Destroyer to defeat it for good. After making sure that the other two accept the risk, Spyro leads the way inside.

**xxxiv. **Flying through the Destroyer at high speed, Spyro, Cynder, and Sparx find their way to the heart, which is composed of an enormous, tendrilous crystal enveloped in rock (a sort of petrous pericardium J), suspended midair, and surrounded by a vast pool of lava which occasionally geysers upward towards the "heart." The dragons attack the crystal, hewing away its rocky shell and exposing it to their attacks; eventually, they manage to shatter the crystal, causing a violent reaction in the Destroyer: The lava begins to rise and erupt.

**xxxv. **The dragons race against the deadly deluge of molten rock, weaving through the tunnels that appear to be the Destroyer's equivalent of blood vessels; they somehow escape through the Destroyer's mouth, followed quickly by a fiery explosion. Ignitus congratulates them, but before their weary elation can settle in, the Destroyer suddenly arises once more, dragging itself onto the shore and continuing its lumbering path along the Ring of Fire. Everyone is shocked and dismayed, and Ignitus professes that he can see no remaining recourse.

**xxxvi. **Spyro declares that there must be a way and suggests taking on Malefor himself, evidently with the hope that defeating him will result in defeating the Destroyer by extension. Ignitus agrees, dispatching Terrador and the Dragon Army back to Warfang to lead everyone into the tunnels of the old city where they may be safe; he also commands Hunter, who is with them, to send a message via falcon to everyone in the outlying regions, telling them to take shelter PDQ. (I forgot to mention – as it really is irrelevant – that the Avalarans joined the Siege of Warfang shortly before the golem's attack on the city.)

**xxxvii. **When Ignitus, Spyro, and Cynder are about to set off, Sparx attempts to join him, but Ignitus reminds him gently that the lands scarred by the Destroyer's passage (lands which they will have to traverse to reach Malefor in the Dragon Temple) will be too harsh for a dragonfly: He would not survive. Spyro agrees, and Sparx makes Cynder promise to take care of his brother; Cynder, her and Sparx's differences evidently momentarily forgotten, vows to do so. With a sorrowful goodbye, Spyro and Sparx part.

**a. **Here I must digress for a moment to explain a few incongruities: The geography of these games is quite obscure and somewhat arbitrary (I have already made several notes on the whimsical nature of directions and precise locations); hence, I must explain the route that, for the purposes of my book, Spyro and Cynder (for Ignitus will soon be gone) are about to take:**b. **The dam and river chasm where the Dragon Army ambushed the Destroyer are located many dozens of miles south of the Temple, which Malefor invaded shortly after returning to power: He usurped the Temple and by a mysterious enchantment suspended it and the terrain within a several mile radius high above the earth; there he has thence been terrorizing the realm and pursuing his genocidal passions. (It is unsure what exactly Malefor seeks to gain by wiping out the Earth.)**c. **The area that Spyro and Cynder are about to traverse ("the Burned Lands") is the charred remains of the swamps and forests between the Temple and the territories east of Warfang; from this, it could be supposed that the Destroyer began its circle at the Temple, proceeding southward and then looping back west and returning from the north: This would explain the route that Spyro and Cynder must take.**d. **The great distance between the two dragons and the Temple – as well as the presence of vast hordes of Malefor's most elite warriors – necessitates an extended voyage, and the journey (again, these details are all of my own design) takes about five days to complete. An additional day and night will be spent in the "Floating Isles."**xxxviii. **Ignitus leads the two young dragons to the wall of flame that marks the boundary between the Burned Lands and those as of yet untouched by the Destroyer's fire. He expands a bubble of energy around them, hoping to shield them from the heat; however, they are only about halfway through when Ignitus begins to falter.

**xxxix. **Spyro, fearful of his mentor's weakness, suggests turning back and finding another way, but Ignitus asserts that there _is_ no other way; he then apologizes for having failed the both of them in so many ways (note that I have taken some license in altering much of what Ignitus said). Ignitus, ignoring Spyro's repeated and more urgent plea to turn back, instructs them to protect one another, after which he uses the remainder of his strength to propel them through the flames to the other side.

**xl. **As the fire closes behind them, Spyro is already on his feet (or paws — distinguishing between these two is often arbitrary), wailing in anguish. Cynder tries to draw him back, telling him that there is nothing that he can do. Spyro turns, consumed by darkness (this transition into "Dark Spyro" is something that was never really explained fully), declaring that there is something that he can do. He turns back around, intending to plunge into the flames and drag Ignitus out.

**xli. **Cynder repeats, while trying to hold him back, that Ignitus is beyond his help and that Spyro cannot save him. Spyro turns and retorts that she cannot stop him; Cynder agrees, saying that Spyro must do that himself. She tells him that Ignitus would want them to continue on, and Spyro yields, dropping his Dark form and confessing that he has never felt more alone. Cynder assures him that despite their losses, he is not alone. The two embrace. (Actually, Cynder simply touches her cheek against his; however, gestures of draconic affection are difficult to define precisely, and so this act is probably akin to a hug, especially given the circumstances, so I have translated it as such.)

**xlii. **After this sorrowful moment, the two commence their trek towards the Temple. The journey is eerie and solemn, and there is an air of impending finality and resolution about it, for all is about to come to an end. The trek through the Burned Lands is harrowing and tense, transpiring over the course of five days, five days in which Spyro and Cynder both fight the pressure of what is about to happen.

**xliii. **The two finally come close enough to the Temple that they are able to ascend to the Floating Isles. Henceforth, the journey takes on a surreal nature as the two fight and island-hop their way towards the Temple, suspended a great distance above the ground. After spending a day traveling, the two dragons reach the entrance to the Temple.

**xliv. **After Spyro and Cynder are both nearly killed by a monolithic troll hurling boulders, they enter the Temple proper to confront Malefor once and for all.

**a. **This part about the two saving each other's life is a bit of poetic license: Depending on whether the player of _Dawn of the Dragon_plays as Spyro or Cynder at this particular point, one of them is nearly killed by a thrown boulder. I have taken the liberty of solidifying this detail: Spyro, stepping forward first, was pulled back by Cynder, who thus saved his life; he in turn saved hers by using his Earth powers to deflect the second boulder. Again, this is a bit of poetic license — I thought that the two dragons saving each other from imminent death within the space of a few moments had a sort of romantic resonanceJ; forgive me if it's cheesy.

**xlv. **Malefor greets the two dragons, attempting to turn them against each other, claiming that the destruction of the world is the destiny of the purple dragon (the actual destiny of the purple dragon is actually quite obscure, and it is, for the purposes of my book, essentially irrelevant) and that Cynder was always working for him. Cynder herself seems unable to figure out whether she is for or against the Dark Master, who then takes control of her momentarily, forcing her to attack Spyro, who vehemently refuses to fight back.

**xlvi. **When Cynder demands to know why Spyro will not defend himself, he replies that she has left him with nothing to fight for; the implications of his statement (so obvious that I need not point them out) jar her out of the Dark Master's grip. Seeing that he cannot manipulate them, Malefor attacks.

**xlvii. **This marks the beginning of a rather long and somewhat ridiculously repetitive battle, throughout which the Temple (or, at least, a piece of the floor) falls from the sky and descends some kind of tunnel into the depths of the Earth. (The tunnel is presumably created by the passage of the Destroyer, which, about halfway through the fight, completes its deadly circle and begins its apocalyptic purging of the planet.) As fire consumes everything, Spyro and Cynder use what remains of their strength to defeat the Dark Master once and for all.

**a. **I have omitted the ending in which Malefor is somehow destroyed by what appear to be spirits of dragons long dead ("the Ancestors"); quite honestly, it struck me as an uninventive, cursory, even prosaic and, if I may wax incisive, somewhat dumb way of ending what otherwise was an excellent game. If that offends anyone, sorry, but, again, there is a measure of authorial and poetic license to be expected with this type of writing.

**xlviii. **After an elegiac dialogue between Cynder and Spyro, Spyro tries to get Cynder to flee (Malefor's death broke the magical chain that had bound them throughout the entire game) while he does whatever he can to save the Earth (apparently his destiny all along was to stop the Destroyer); Cynder refuses, declaring that she will stay with him. Spyro, with no time to argue, releases a pulse of energy that reverses the Destroyer's, well, destruction.

**xlix. **Just as the pulse fires and everything is consumed in purplish light, Cynder whispers (not too quietly) the words, "I love you" (in all objectivity, a very dramatic momentJ).

**l. **The Earth is then seen to be restored to its pre-apocalyptic state, and the final "official" scene is that of the Guardians (save for Ignitus), Sparx, and Hunter emerging from underground to observe a poetic sunset and to watch the rising of a constellation in the shape of a young dragon.

**a. **Actually, one could claim that it was in fact a sun_rise_— both have poetic implications; however, the lighting and the general time frame indicate that it is in fact a sunset.

**li. **After the credits have rolled, the Chronicler soliloquizes (well, not quiteJ), stating that the dawn of an era (hence the title, _Dawn of the Dragon_) is followed by the dawn of a new Chronicler to record its triumphs and downfalls. The Chronicler then turns to Ignitus (who apparently is either not dead or somehow resurrected — assuming the Chronicler is even alive to begin with: He is, after all, outside of time…apparently…), naming him the new Chronicler and transferring his power to him.

**lii. **Ignitus plies the Chronicler with a question: What has become of Spyro? The Chronicler gives no direct answer, stating instead that the deaths and destinies of all dragons (in the game he says _creatures_, but I have altered this detail — a book about the deaths of all creatures would be unimaginably thick!) are recorded in a single book…and that, try as he may, he can find no trace of either Spyro or Cynder within its pages.

**liii. **The Chronicler vanishes forever, and Ignitus opens the book, flicking through its pages, wondering to himself with a smile where Spyro might be.

**liv. **The story ends with a scene of Spyro and Cynder flying through the air together, carefree and happy.

**a. **The forest in question is presumed to be the Enchanted Forest, as the trees and clouds are identical; however, for my purposes, the forest is in fact a secluded wood to the west of the Enchanted Forest, beyond several mountain ranges.

**D ****Expositional**

**1. **(The information in this subsection pertains to primarily cultural details that differ from those of humans — after all, this _is_ about dragons.)**2. **Though Spyro and Cynder do have children and there is little doubt that they are conjugally bound, there will be no time at which I will term them "husband" and "wife": Dragons do not have marriage ceremonies, so there is no use for such terms. (Additionally, it seems odd to call them "husband" and "wife" considering they are so young — but more on that in a moment.)**3. **You will also not see me use the term "mate." This is a matter of personal preference: I do not like the term because it is applied mainly to animals (and, yes, I know that they are animals) and thus has a depersonalizing connotation which I, quite frankly, abhor.**4. **On a related subject, I also refuse to use such "affectionate" apocopations as "Spy" and "Cyn" (which I have seen before in other stories) in dialogues between Spyro and Cynder: Firstly, I'm not a fan of such saccharine hypocorisms (or any others for that matter) to begin with; and secondly, I do not think that it fits the characters: Spyro and Cynder never referred to one another in this manner, and I see no precedent for it to have started, so I will not employ it.

**i. **I also do not use such hypocorisms as "honey" or "dear" (innocuous though they may be) in reference to their children: The one sobriquet that I allow is "kiddo," and that is a term that only Spyro uses and only in reference to Arial.

**ii. **If this upsets you, sorry — authorial prerogativeJ

**5. **Another issue to address is that of draconic aging: The games are highly confusing in this matter, and rather than attempt to consolidate a set of uniform criteria for aging, I will simply state that dragons mature more rapidly than do humans (which would explain why, in my timeline, Spyro is _two_ when he first sets off on his journey in _A New Beginning_).

**i. **Thus, Spyro and Cynder are about twenty-four in dragon years: approximately thirty or so in human years. Arial, being eighteen in dragon years, is the rough equivalent of twenty-two or so; Lucas is about seven, which translates as about sixteen or seventeen; Rose is two in dragon years, which is about eleven or twelve in human years.

**ii. **This is not particularly important, but it may be confusing to not know.

**6. **This has already been mentioned, but I must also note the slight nuance between physical gestures of humans and of dragons; I am not going to go in-depth, but simply be aware that there are minor discrepancies.**7. **Note also that Spyro and Cynder have taken on the roles of teachers at the Temple, training young dragons to harness their powers. (This was a role implied to have been entrusted to the Guardians, and with theirs deaths this scholastic mantle has been taken up by their successors.)

**III. ****Characters**

**A ****_(NOTE: This section pertains mostly to characters with whom you may or should be familiar but details concerning whom may be a bit obscure. This section is designed to clarify the mysteries and ambiguities surrounding certain characters and to define a few new ones. Obviously not all of the characters in the book will be listed; just those that will play a more immediate role and for whom I thus do not necessarily have time to completely characterize.)_**

**B ****Spyro**

**1. **Primary protagonist**2. **Purple dragon with purple eyes**3. **Age: approximately 24 years**4. **Commander in Chief of the Dragon Army; teacher at the Temple**5. **Father (by Cynder) of Arial, Lucas, and Rose

**C ****Cynder**

**1. **Secondary protagonist**2. **Black dragoness with green eyes (for some reason people can never get that right…)**3. **Age: approximately 24 years**4. **High-ranking officer in the Dragon Army; teacher at the Temple**5. **Mother (by Spyro) of Arial, Lucas, and Rose

**D ****(Captain) Arial**

**1. **Purple dragoness with green eyes**2. **Age: approximately 18 years**3. **Recently trained doctor for the Dragon Army**4. **Firstborn daughter of Spyro and Cynder

**E ****Lucas**

**1. **Black dragon with sapphire-like eyes (blue — because sapphires _can_ be other colors…)**2. **Age: approximately 7 years**3. **Studying to be an officer in the Dragon Army**4. **Son of Spyro and Cynder

**F ****Rose**

**1. **Scarlet dragoness with willowy eyes**2. **Age: approximately 2 years**3. **Just beginning her training in the Temple**4. **Daughter (and youngest child) of Spyro and Cynder

**G ****(Lieutenant Colonel Doctor) Ambulo**

**1. **Red dragon with sagacious green eyes ringed with gold scales**2. **Age: irrelevant (just know that he is older but not ancient)**3. **One of the foremost doctors at the Temple and chief of a division of the Dragon Army Medical Corps**4. **Doctor: both physician _and_ psychiatrist**5. **Close friend of Spyro (due to circumstances during the Dark War that are beyond the scope of this book)

**H ****(Captain) Marius**

**1. **Slender blue dragon with hawkish golden eyes**2. **Age: irrelevant (he is a full adult, but not particularly old)**3. **A premiere intelligence officer for the Dragon Army's Division of Military Intelligence**4. **Close associate of Spyro due to service in the Dark War (at the end of which he was promoted from (first) lieutenant to captain).

**I ****Hunter (the Avalaran)**

**1. **Avalaran warrior**2. **Age: unknown**3. **A close friend of Spyro due to connection during the War of Malefor (see above outline of _The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon_)

**J ****Sparx**

**1. **Spyro's dragonfly "brother"**2. **Age: two years (this is my own guesstimation, and it is irrelevant either way; maturity-wise, he is approximately fifteen or so or about the age of Spyro's son, Lucas)**3. **Obviously very close to Spyro, but not very fond of Cynder (and vice versa)

**IV. ****Disclaimers and Related Information**

**A ****Disclaimers**

**1. **Obviously, many of the primary characters of this book (including but not limited to Spyro, Cynder, Sparx, and Hunter) are all copyright/trademark protected and are exclusively owned by their respective companies; I disclaim all rights to said characters, as well as to any other elements so protected by law.**2. **Again, any and all plot elements and/or characters protected by copyright/trademark by Sierra Company and its contributors in _The Legend of Spyro_trilogy are the exclusive property thereof and all rights thereto are heretofore repudiated: I claim no ownership.

**B ****General Copyright**

**1. **This said, I _do_ claim right to the characters and general, unprotected, and novel information herein presented, including but certainly not limited to Spyro and Cynder's children, the officers of the Dragon Army, and all characters not presented in and therefore not protected under the ownership of the trilogy proper.**2. **All such characters and/or literary elements are herein protected by a general copyright, which is legally recognized as applicable to all original material either published or unpublished.**3. **(Basically, don't steal my stuff!)

**C ****_Just as a side note, plagiarism, while not illegal _per se_, _is_ frowned upon _and_ against the regulations of this site; therefore, the original and unprotected (by the Sierra Company and related contributors to _The Legend of Spyro_ trilogy) information herein and henceforth presented are in fact protected under this site's regulations. Violation of said blanket protection is punishable by _.**

**CHAPTER 1**

"All is Well"

Cynder blinked open her eyes, closing them almost immediately against the bright but watery sunlight. Opening her eyes again, she looked around: The chamber was pervaded by that pacific gray glow that accompanied dawn, and a thick mist outside had splintered the incoming sunlight, spraying little droplets of light all over the place.

Facing the entrance to the little balcony, this splash of brightness had momentarily blinded Cynder. One would have thought that she would have figured out by now not to face this direction: The weather had been quite foggy recently, and every day she had awoken to the misty shimmer.

It was quite common in springtime: Situated on the border of expanses of swamps and forests, the Dragon Temple was characterized by an unusual and somewhat ethereal mixture of temperate and tropical climatic patterns; springtime was foggy, wet, and cold, while the summers were torrid and dry; autumn was crisp and cool, while the winters brought fierce storms and frigid cold. Cynder had never liked cold.

It was cold this morning — auroral spring air was almost always chilly and thick with dew; but Cynder didn't feel the cold: Spyro, who lay next to her, still asleep, had his wing draped over her, keeping her both warm and dry.

Usually Spyro awoke before her, but he was probably tired: Yesterday there had been some kind of meeting at Warfang concerning the repairs to the city that were still underway (why that meeting had demanded the attention of the commander in chief of the Dragon Army, Cynder didn't know…), even now, two decades after the siege. _Malefor's armies really did a number on it…_

Cynder didn't understand why Spyro didn't just use his powers: They had escalated enormously ever since Malefor's demise, and he was certainly capable of traversing the immense distance between the Temple and Warfang in no time at all, but he insisted on taking the "normal" route. Spyro never did like using that ability — he preferred to fly.

Either way, he had left at dawn the previous day and had returned only just before midnight this morning; even a dragon couldn't fly that many miles without tiring…not even Spyro.

Cynder glanced at him: He was just lying there, chest rising and falling with the slow, deep, rhythmic (almost juvenescent) breaths that characterized his sleep; the sound was so familiar to Cynder that listening to it always brought back memories both recent and old. She smiled and rolled her eyes: No matter how mature he was, there was just something childlike in Spyro. She liked that.

A knock came at the door, situated in the center of the wall to Cynder's left. Cynder turned to see it open slightly; a dragoness poked her head in.

"You guys awake?"

"I am, Arial," replied Cynder, giving her a maternal smile, "but your father's not."

"That's unusual," said Arial, stepping into the room and shutting the door silently.

Arial, had she been a couple of years older, could have passed for Spyro's sister: She resembled him in almost every way, right down to the way she walked — she even had the purple scales. (That had greatly surprised Cynder: She hadn't thought that the purple scale color was genetic since it had always been treated as some sort of prophetic sign or something.) However, she had, as Spyro had been very quick to point out at her birth, inherited Cynder's green eyes.

Arial was their first child, born almost two decades ago, not too long after the War of Malefor had ended; she had been, for all intents and purposes, the perfect daughter: She was respectful and obedient (_evidently she didn't inherit her mother's fire_, thought Cynder wryly), but she was smart and kind as well. She had not, to both her parents' relief, inherited the talent for battle: She was not a great fighter, and war made her sick.

Arial did, however, have a proclivity for healing, which, along with her compassionate heart – which Cynder was convinced she had inherited from her father, who blushed fiercely every time Cynder mentioned it…which she did occasionally just for that reason – had led to her becoming a doctor in the Dragon Army Medical Corps.

It was no coincidence that Arial had inherited most of her traits from her father: They were closer than Cynder had seen any parent and child (not that she had seen too many — most of the dragons at the Temple until recently had not had families), and Arial was the only one of their three children that Spyro addressed by a sobriquet: _kiddo_. It was the only hypocorism that she had ever heard him use, and she was fairly certain that it would remain the only one.

During the Dark War, which had erupted shortly after Malefor's demise and had lasted for seven very long and bloody years, Arial had gone missing for a brief period of time, and it had been all Cynder could do to keep Spyro from breaking down: He had been so utterly distraught that Cynder had worried that he had suffered permanent psychological damage. But Arial had been found, and everything had slowly and painfully returned to normal — whatever normal was during a war.

That incident, if anything, had pushed the two closer together, and, though Spyro treated all three of his children the same, it was common knowledge that Arial held a very special place in his heart.

"Yes, it is unusual," Cynder remarked, turning her gaze back on Spyro, who still slumbered beside her. Arial approached him, peering at his closed eyes.

"I just ran into Captain Marius," she said quietly, apparently now worried that she may awaken her father, "He wants to speak with dad about something really important."

Cynder frowned. "It must be pretty serious if he needs to bug Spyro — why doesn't he just report to Cognova?" After all, Lieutenant Colonel Cognova was the head of the Dragon Army's Division of Military Intelligence.

"I don't know," replied Arial with a shake of her head, "That's just what he told me in passing." Captain Marius was one of the most senior intelligence officers in the Dragon Army, and he was fairly close to Spyro due to having worked with him throughout the Dark War. Cynder had learnt to trust his judgment over the years, so she knew that if he was asking for a personal audience with Spyro, he would have a very good reason…and _that_ worried her slightly.

"Strange…" mused Cynder.

"You know," said Arial absently, glancing around the chamber, "this room really is kind of small."

Cynder smiled. It was true: The chamber which had become her and Spyro's dormitory was a sequestered little abode situated on the lowest level of the Temple's obscure northwestern wing; it was barely thirty feet in diameter (small for dragons), with a single door on the southern wall and an opening to a little balcony that sat on the Temple's bottom corner, overlooking the thick, tangled forests that characterized the terrain north of the Temple, as well as the swamps that lay to the south.

There were no windows and no ornamentation of any kind. Cynder wasn't sure, but she suspected that the room had originally been designated as a sort of hangar, an entry point for guests from the north who wanted to pass through unnoticed.

Actually, the chamber had fallen into their possession almost adventitiously: Several years ago, shortly before Arial had been born, Cynder had fallen deathly ill from combat wounds, and Spyro, with the help of Doctor Ambulo – probably the most prodigious doctor in the Dragon Army, head of a division of the Medical Corps, and a close friend of Spyro's – nursed her back to health. This room had been selected as the site for her convalescence because of its privacy and tranquility…the two qualities which had led them to remain there permanently.

"We don't really need a big one," answered Cynder, her smile broadening at the memories. A second knock came at the door, and a dragoness poked her head in as Arial had moments before…in fact, the new arrival was her younger sister, Rose.

Rose had been named for a former pupil of Spyro's, a precocious young dragoness who had been killed during the Dark War, and she possessed the same general form as her namesake: She was thin and small with scales of a sort of serous carmine color; an ingenuous, docile face; and an air of pleasantness about her that reminded one of the flower whose name she bore. She, like Arial, had inherited Cynder's green eyes, although in her they were slightly paler.

"Oh, good: You're awake," she said perkily, slipping inside.

"What's up, Rose?" asked Cynder, smiling at her daughter's buoyancy. Unlike Arial, who had been a very demure, pacific child, Rose was a boisterous, excitable girl who rarely ran out of energy: Even now she was playing with her father's tail, swatting at it with her paw.

"I'm supposed to have my first lessons today," said Rose, not looking up from her game, in which Spyro was her unwitting partner, "and dad's not up yet." Cynder glanced out the balcony opening at the lightening sky and the matutinal mist.

"It's barely after dawn," she pointed out.

"I know, but — "

"Who's that on my tail?" murmured Spyro suddenly, blinking one eye open and turning it toward his daughter; upon seeing her he opened both eyes and lifted his head slightly, smiling.

"Morning, dad," Rose answered him, still playing with his tail.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you that it isn't fair to play with someone's tail while he's asleep?" joked Spyro, flicking the appendage out of her reach. Rose pounced after it, but she missed by a few inches and landed by her father's flank; he pinned her to his side with his tail. "Gotcha," he growled playfully; Rose laughed gleefully as he tickled her with the very tip of his tail.

Cynder couldn't help but chuckle at him: Spyro had many talents, to be sure, but it seemed that his greatest calling was as a father.

"So," continued Spyro with feigned concern, "why am I being beset upon so early in the morning?"

"You're supposed to give me and the other students our first lessons today," said Rose, as though legitimately worried that he had forgotten.

"In a few hours," Spyro replied. "Hey, kiddo," he added to Arial, whom he apparently had just noticed — unsurprisingly, since she had, at Rose's entrance, retreated a few steps towards the door. Arial smiled in response.

"You're not gonna be late, are you, dad?" asked Rose.

"I suppose not — not with you giving me a wakeup call," Spyro said amusedly. He turned his amethyst gaze on Arial. "I don't have lessons for you, do I?" he joked.

"I'm afraid not," she answered, "I just dropped by to tell you that Captain Marius wants to speak with you privately ASAP." Spyro's smile shrank marginally, a slight shadow coming over his expression.

"That's a strange request," he muttered slowly, almost as though he were talking to himself.

"You can probably catch him before your class," Cynder suggested.

"Speaking of which," interjected Arial, "Come on, Rose, you'd better eat something before you have your first lesson — believe me, you don't want your stomach growling in the middle of a sentence!" Without further ado, Arial swept her sister from the chamber, closing the door (which Rose had left open upon entering) behind her. A cloud must have passed in front of the sun, as the dappled light that had been illumining the room was suddenly replaced by cool shadow.

"I suppose I should go see Marius," mused Spyro, sounding slightly worried. "When's your first lesson supposed to start?" he asked Cynder.

"Not till noon," she replied in a somewhat jaunty tone, teasing him with her more relaxed timetable. Spyro gave her a grin, evidently perceiving the undertone in her voice.

"Well, then, I suppose I won't want to disturb you in your sedulity," he said primly. Cynder laughed.

"No," she said, "I think I'll relax a little: go out on the balcony and enjoy the spring sunlight." Spyro smiled at her.

"Sounds nice," he said with a voice that contained just the slightest hint of wistfulness. He kissed her gently on the cheek and then stood, stretched, and headed for the door. "I'll see you later, Cynder."

"See you…" He left, and Cynder was left alone to bask in the reemergent sunlight.

She smiled to herself. It really was a lovely morning, especially since the rising sun had begun to chase away the cold of the previous night. She took a deep breath of dew-heavy, fragrant air, exhaling slowly and closing her eyes to savor the serenity more fully.

All was well.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Felador entered the room and looked around: His sanguineous eyes flickered eerily as he crossed the darkened space. He saw nothing, so he hid himself in a shadowy corner near the door whereby he had entered; he settled back to wait.

The room was small and ill lit, with no furnishing other than a simple desk at the rear wall, opposite the door; upon it there was a single candelabrum with three candles, only the middle one of which was lit, casting a dim lambency across the bleak, gray walls, doing little to cleave the thick shadows outside of a two meter radius. There was nothing on the walls or on the desk other than the candelabrum, a few assorted papers, and a pen: Besides these few clerical articles, the space was utterly barren.

Time passed slowly: The shadows – distinguished from the pure darkness by the glow of the candle – danced sinisterly as Felador inhaled and exhaled, his breath sounding like that of a wolf, forming a ragged backbeat to the shadows' capering. In…out…back…forth…in…out —

Someone was coming. Felador's breath froze in his throat, and he sank back into the dark's embrace and there ceased to move; he waited, silent and inert, as the stranger approached.

A dragon entered: a dragon with earthily green scales and dilute blue eyes; his stature and form were reminiscent of trees and boulders: He was tall and broad-shouldered with thick limbs like trunks, resulting in a sort of stocky frame that was not unlike a large rock; the scales of his chest were slightly dirtier in color than those of the rest of his body — a sort of grassy brown.

"Evening, Sortolo," Felador said to the dragon, smiling slyly. The dragon called Sortolo jumped and whirled around.

"Felador!" he said angrily, "I've _told_ you to stop doing that!" Felador gave him a wicked grin.

"Sorry," he said remorselessly. Sortolo scowled.

"Well," he growled, "What do you want?"

"I have a report to make."

"Regarding?"

"Our little scheme." Sortolo's face grew serious.

"You've figured out how to execute the plan?"

"I think so." Sortolo nodded and gestured inward; Felador obeyed and moved away from the door, which Sortolo promptly closed and sealed. This done, he crossed over to the desk, rifled through the papers jumbled there, shoved them into a drawer, then looked up at Felador.

"Well?"

"What? No foreplay?"

"Cut it, Felador. Get to the point."

"All right, all right: I think I've finally got all the kinks worked out."

"So you've decided on a _modus operandi_?" Felador's wicked grin returned.

"I thought we'd decided that you didn't want to know that." Sortolo grimaced.

"No, I don't particularly want to know how you intend to carry this thing out, no; however, I _do_ need to be apprised of particular details."

"Such as?"

"For starters, what's your general objective? If I remember correctly, our last correspondence – so long ago – had not defined the actual goal of our little clandestine operation — "

"Murder," broke in Felador immediately, his grin now replaced by a far more sinister and ineffably horrible expression: It most closely resembled a snarl. "I want murder." Sortolo returned this declaration with a dispassionate but serious gaze.

"I don't want to know," he said slowly, "why you're so bloodthirsty…do I?"

"No," growled Felador, "You don't." _I have my reasons_.

"Fair enough — but as I recall, simple assassination was not to be considered sufficient for our ends. Have you prepared ulterior repercussions to your little….bloodbath?"

"Oh, believe me: My plan will work." Felador reached into a satchel that hung off of his left shoulder, extracting a single, folded piece of paper, which he then handed to his superior. Sortolo took the paper and unfolded it.

"Good heavens," he murmured, quickly scanning its contents and then storing it in his desk as though the sight of it sickened him. This done, he returned his gaze to Felador. "You pulling out all stops, aren't you?" Felador gave him a look. "Right, right — I don't want to know."

Sortolo reached back into the drawers, leafing through unseen documents, muttering to himself incomprehensibly; after a few moments, he looked back up, pausing in his endeavor.

"You realize, of course, that this is going to require vast resources?"

"I've already begun planning for that."

"Of course you have," Sortolo remarked grimly; he pulled out a bundle of forms. "You know where to take these." Felador nodded as he took the papers and slid them into his satchel. "If that's all…" Felador nodded a second time, turned, and headed for the door. "Felador." The dragon turned.

Sortolo's face was deathly serious, eerily backlit by the lambent light of the sole candle. "You realize that once you embark on this…there's no turning back."

"Believe me, Sortolo," answered Felador in a cold, diabolical voice, "I'm well aware of the implications." His last words hung in the air like smoke as he promptly left the room, the candle flickering out in his wake.


	2. Glimmerings

**CHAPTER 2**

"Glimmerings"

"You wanted to see me, Captain?" asked Spyro as he entered the room where Marius stood, poring over what appeared to be a map and a smattering of related documents.

The slender, hawkish dragon looked up: His face was grim, his golden eyes glazed with something that Spyro could most closely define as worry.

"Yes sir," Marius replied gravely, "There is something that I must tell you — will you follow me?" Spyro nodded, somewhat confused, and Marius led him out onto a rampart situated along the lower western walls.

It was a cool spring morning: The sun was just rising, casting its watery golden rays westward; the air was fresh and sweet, the slightest breeze tickling Spyro's face as he left the stuffier atmosphere of the Temple's interior.

Spring had arrived swiftly at the Temple that year, following closely on the heels of winter, as sunlight followed the dawn: The snow had melted, giving way rapidly to bright new flowers and grasses; the entire Temple had come alive with florescence, the distanced beauty of the white-capped turrets clawing the bleak sky supplanted by the familiar beauty of multicolored parterres suffusing their fragrances through the air.

Spyro enjoyed the spring: He found the scents of the flowers soothing, and he loved how they wafted through the fresh, cool air like feathers borne gracefully by some tantalizing breeze, settling gently and imperceptibly upon everything and everyone. It made him smile every time when someone would come in unknowingly from some excursion with the floral odors clinging to his scales. Spyro had found that the scents of flowers and of stones (such as those with which the Temple was constructed) mixed together superbly, forming an enriching and pacific aroma.

Not that he didn't enjoy he winter as well: The Temple was a beautiful sight blanketed in snow, pristine whiteness adhering to every stone of the parapets, every tile of the towers, every awning of the courtyards; when dragons would take flight, their wings would stir up the powdered upper strata of the snow, scattering them like spores through the air, where they percolated and refracted the sun's thin rays, blossoming into glistening jewels of light.

Both winter and spring shared in the tempestuousness of the Temple's awkwardly temperate-tropical climate: Winter storms struck the Temple with savage force, driving knives of cold into anyone who ventured outside and encrusting everything in ice and snow — not the delicate, woolly snow of the season; but sticky, piercing snow that boasted an almost infectious quality: It adsorbed onto every imaginable surface, coating it in discomforting whiteness. Spyro had once found a layer of the stuff deposited on the bracket holding up a torch in one of the Temple's interior hallways. How it had penetrated that deeply into the building and how it had not melted from the heat of the nearby flame Spyro would never know.

Spring storms were more congenial: To be true, they were equally forceful, but they heralded none of the serious incommodity of their winter brethren; they brought driving rains – thick, portentous drops that struck with startling force (Spyro had seen someone sustain a bruise from some outdoor endeavor that had exposed him overlong to the pluvial barrage) – as well as powerful winds that blasted capriciously in every direction.

Both hiemal and vernal storms brought a sense of pendulousness, a suspicion that something like a dark cloud – other than those which brought the storm in the first place – hovered over everything. Sometimes this cloud was sheltering…at times sinister: Spyro always felt overcome by a sense of immanence, as though a voice whispered to him through the winds and a warning trumpeted through the thunder.

But then the sensation would pass; the sun would splinter the plumbean sky into shining strata of light, and color would return to the world. The nagging feeling would evaporate, and Spyro would be left with only vague recollections of it. At times he wondered what the strange clairaudience meant, but typically he simply shrugged it away: He had more tangible worries to confront.

Such as what on Earth Marius had to tell him that was so important: The intelligence officer was leading him along circuitous paths throughout the western ramparts, changing levels and veering abruptly in random directions; Spyro had seen that behavior before — that of a dragon trying to avoid being followed.

Countersurveillance always worried him: He didn't like the idea of trouble lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce upon its unsuspecting victims. But Marius had been trained to think that way (as had Spyro — up to a point), and his employment of the technique told Spyro that whatever he wanted to tell him was more important that he had initially surmised.

Marius continued to direct him on his seemingly desultory path, occasionally making delusive gestures that would convince any cursory observer that the two were engaged in a casual, adventitious conversation.

Finally, as they rounded a bend that Spyro was convinced that they had traversed four times already, Marius spoke, quietly and inscrutably:

"I am sure, sir, that you are wondering what I have to tell you that requires such countermeasures as I am employing."

"The thought had crossed my mind," Spyro answered, mimicking Marius's noncommittal, quotidian tone.

"I could not risk our being overheard."

"Is there need to fear that?" The need for countersurveillance in the Temple worried him more particularly than did countersurveillance in general: It reminded him of the spy who, throughout the Dark War, had impeded many of the Dragon Army's efforts to end the war and had leaked vital intelligence to the enemy; the spy had engendered the deaths of many good soldiers, people that Spyro had admired – and some that he had truly loved – and nearly the death of Spyro himself…but Spyro had gotten to him first. Barely. The closeness of that call – having escaped death and disaster by a hairbreadth – resulted in Spyro being highly perturbed by any indication of traitorous activity.

"I do not know, sir…and that is what worries me."

"What's this about, Captain?"

"A few days ago, one of my intelligence officers in the Enchanted Forest stumbled upon something. You are aware, sir, from Lieutenant Colonel Cognova's weekly intelligence dispatches, that the forest has experienced a recent upsurge in 'criminal subversive' activity?"

"I recall that memo passing my desk a few times, yes."

"Well, that was all whispers until now. My officer came across what appears to be an old supply cache — only it contained forlorn documents and no other matériel."

"Documents?"

"Yes sir — primarily the clerical articles to be expected in such a case – supply requisitions, inventories, weekly and monthly reports, things of that nature – but there was a single missive – a correspondence between what appears to be a field officer of some sort and his superior – which interested us greatly."

"Why?" Marius's voice grew just slightly grimmer.

"The letter contained instructions for the commencement of the initial stages of an assassination plot." Spyro paused, countersurveillance notwithstanding.

"Assassination?" he repeated, instantly worried. Assassination was another topic that brought him discord.

"Yes sir. We do not know many details other than that the op was in its nascent phase at the time of the correspondence — most of the letter was lost – burned in a fire, it would seem – and the document was at least six months old besides."

"So do we know if the op is going forward?" asked Spyro, he and the captain recommencing their promenade.

"Until we determine otherwise, sir, we must assume so." Spyro sighed.

"Who's the target?" It was Marius this time who stopped.

"You, sir." Spyro looked at him. The intelligence officer was giving him a very grave, very level gaze, his avian, golden eyes darkened by that mysterious expression that Spyro had seen in him when they had commenced their circuit of the Temple's western ramparts.

Spyro wasn't sure what to think: It was hardly unsurprising that someone wanted to kill him – it was old news by now – and from what Marius had said, the intel was sketchy at best: a burnt, half-year-old partial document in a forlorn cache buried in the forest? Not exactly premium intelligence…

"How serious is this?" Spyro asked frankly. Marius was a better judge than he was in such matters.

"Potentially _very_ serious," replied the captain, "and until we know for sure — deathly serious." Spyro sighed.

"So what's the plan?"

"For now, simply be cautious, sir. I'm digging into this as quickly and quietly as possible." _Quietly_, Spyro repeated to himself. That struck an ominous note in him.

"Do you suspect a security leak?" he asked in a low tone. Marius's only initial reply was a solemn grimace.

"I can't say, sir. All I know is that the first thing that _I_ would do in planning an assassination would be to insert an operative into the enemy's infrastructure: Inside information is invaluable to a successful assassination — especially one employed apparently without military assets.

"After six months…there could easily be one or several agents doing exactly that."

"Anyone who might jump to the top of the suspect list?"

"Not as of yet — I have some analysts I trust making furtive inquiries; I'll get back to you on that, sir."

"What about the officers who brought you this intel in the first place? Do you trust them?"

"Absolutely, sir," the captain answered immediately. "I've known most of them for several years, and they can vouch for the others; nonetheless," he added, "I have a few other trustworthy agents looking into that, as well."

"So what else can we do?"

"For now: wait. Any rash action could intimate that we are privy to the criminals' plot, and, at this stage of the game, that would be a perilous gamble: On the one hand, it may scare them into rescinding their plans…but," he added, "I find it far more likely that it would inflame the situation and provoke them to an unpredictable response."

"Agreed," said Spyro, "Anything that I should do specifically?"

"No sir: If these dragons _do_ have operatives in our ranks, then it would be foolhardy – and likely dangerous – to present anything unusual."

"Agreed," repeated Spyro, "One more thing: Have you apprised Lieutenant Colonel Cognova of all of this?" Marius hesitated a moment before replying slowly:

"Any hint of an assassination plot constitutes high-priority intelligence, which I, as the regional vicegerent, may disclose to any superior at my discretion…especially if I suspect a security breach."

"You don't suspect Cognova, do you?" asked Spyro, incredulous: Everyone he had ever known had vouched for Cognova's integrity.

"No, I do not, sir," replied Marius with a sigh, "but I cannot afford to take any risks: For now, I have secreted the reports, and the only dragons who know about this are you, me, and the officers I have assigned to the case and who found the cache in the first place."

"Very well; if that's all, Captain, I need to get going."

"Of course, sir — oh," said Marius suddenly, "one more thing." Spyro, who had just turned around to leave, looked back over his shoulder: Marius, for the first time throughout the entire conversation, looked truly uncomfortable, and he seemed to be only reluctantly meeting his superior's gaze.

"Yes, Marius?"

"I…I suggest discretion in the parties to which you confide this information…sir." Spyro paused and narrowed his eyes ever so slightly.

"If I didn't know better, I would think that that remark was aimed towards Cynder." Marius's discomfort waxed.

"Sir, I do not mean to encroach upon your personal affairs, and I certainly do not mean to allude to any sort of perfidy, sir; but…" He sighed. "Sir, all I know to tell you is what _I_ was told when I first began working in intelligence: 'The best way to keep a secret is to keep it to yourself.'"

Spyro nodded: He knew Marius well enough to be assured of the sincerity of what he had said and of his implicit concern for both him and Cynder. The intelligence officer was simply doing his job…and doing it well.

"I understand, Marius," he replied gently. With that, he turned and walked off, heading back into the Temple.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Scabré furtively scanned the street ahead, his sharp, blue eyes flitting from one pedestrian to the next, searching for the target of his painfully lengthy investigations. He had labored arduously for so long to track down this dragon – _this murderer_, Scabré reminded himself – who was the cause of so much grief in Vunoire.

Not that there wasn't already a lot of _that_: Vunoire – the capital of the northernmost kingdom of the North Isles – had never exactly had a happy history; it had been fraught with violence and upheaval for centuries, and the devastation wreaked by the Dark War was still on the mend.

The political system was in shambles: Early on in the war, the king of Vunoire – King Nyrre – had been assassinated, and Vunoire had been subjugated by the kingdom to the east, Frolichthon. For a few years, Vunoire lay as a subservient land, and its liberation resulted in a sociopolitical and economic vacuum that had caused the nation to implode, its newfound life petering out — much like a dragon who ascended too quickly to too great an altitude, thus losing breath and spiraling back down to earth.

Scabré had been a member of the Vunoire Royal Police for decades, and he knew the city like the back of his paw. But now he was tracking prey who might just rival him as no other had before: A series of murders over the past three months had completely baffled the investigators, and Scabré was just beginning to close in on the suspect.

He didn't even know his name: All he had was a general height, weight, and age, and the culprit's next intended target — a political reformist by the name of Maren. He was a nobody, really, in terms of motive for homicide: Aside from his ardent and well-known desire for change – for the better – there was little about him that anyone would find even remotely galling — and certainly not insofar as to provoke murder.

But that did not matter: He was marked for death, and it was Scabré's job to ensure that he eluded his unwarranted punition.

The detective turned his eyes back upon the street: It was a fairly crowded thoroughfare on the southwestern side of the city, near the gates leading to the much smaller town of Seignon, which had been razed during the Dark War and which had since been reborn from its old ashes. The dragons on the street were busying themselves with their daily errands, and nothing seemed amiss — but then again, it never did…not with the clever ones…

Scabré continued to survey the pedestrians, scanning fervently for the unsuspecting Maren, who was due to be passing down the street any moment now…

There! Maren was just turning onto the street a few blocks east. Scabré began to make his way casually in that direction, ensuring that his comportment would not betray his identity (he was not wearing his badge); he slid through the crowd, sweeping his gaze back and forth as though simply absorbing the sensations of the crisp spring morning, though in actuality constantly reaffirming that the target was still visible.

Just as he was about to cross the street, it happened: A burly, belligerent-looking dragon with scales of a mucous color stepped in front of him; Scabré sensed by the look in his eye that he was not simply a cantankerous pedestrian who wasn't watching where he was going.

Just as the dragon began to lift a paw with claws unsheathed, Scabré moved: He darted forward, seizing the dragon under his right foreleg, using his momentum and all the force he could add to it to flip him over onto his back (incurring several gasps and little yelps from nearby civilians); delivering a quick jab to the face that rendered the dragon unconscious, Scabré looked up:

The street was now churning, as the initial reaction to the altercation (or perhaps something more, he feared) escalated into full-blown mayhem, with innocent bystanders fleeing in every direction; a few screams rang out, and Scabré shot off through the crowd to try and find Maren: In a rabble like this, no one would notice a killer sneaking up on someone…

Scabré forced his way to the other side of the street, by which time a significant portion of the pedestrians had managed to decamp; he looked around and spotted a dragon lying on the ground in a pool of red, a second dragon – a big but slender one – absconding in a blur of hazy blue scales. Scabré's breath caught in his throat. He raced over to the body.

The moment he got there he realized that there was nothing to be done: Maren was dead, his lifeblood effused upon the stony street, a single gash through the center of his neck revealing itself to be the fatal wound.

_Blast it!_ Scabré swore to himself, glancing in the direction in which the murderer had fled: He was nowhere to be seen; nothing met Scabré's eyes but an empty road. He returned his gaze to the body.

Maren's eyes were closed: Had it not been for the blood, it may have seemed as if he were sleeping.


	3. Cold Wind Rising

**CHAPTER 3**

"Cold Wind Rising"

Lucas raced down the hall, his heart pounding as he tried desperately to reach his class on time. He had slept in…again. He wasn't _technically_ late yet — but Captain Asperverus, who taught this particular class (nicknamed "Tracking and Trekking," or "TNT" — after "Tracking_ 'n'_ Trekking"), was a pretty big stickler for military discipline. For him, on time was late.

It didn't help that the classroom was situated high up in a tower on the northwestern side of the Temple — one of the hardest to access: Apparently, when that area was first constructed, it had been designed as a dungeon (as the Temple had originally been formed as a sort of combination school and castle), and its conversion into schoolrooms and dormitories had produced one of the most confusing layouts of all time:

The corridors wound up and down, zigzagged, and even spiraled; there were few windows aside from the open walkways that girded a few of the outer areas, dividing the western walls into three tiers; the inner hallways were lit with torches that effected an eerie, sepulchral glow even on the brightest of summer days; and it was _cold_: The prevailing northern wind struck the Temple almost precisely on its upper northwestern corner, bringing with it a cold that was while not arctic at least discomforting. It was very hard to pay attention in class when you were fidgeting, trying to stay reasonably warm.

Not that Captain Asperverus didn't do his part: He was a very strict teacher, and no one dared to doze off in _his_ class…unless he _wanted_ to wind up sprawled out on the floor to the nervous, timorous chuckles of his peers. Thankfully, despite Lucas's tendency to sleep in, he had yet to become prey to that peril…so far…

About the only good thing about the captain's TNT class was that, by its very nature and by Asperverus's own predilection, it was held largely outdoors. Lucas hated being cooped up in a cold, airy classroom all day, a teacher droning on and on — like in Chemistry. No matter what anyone – even his father – told him, he would never understand _why_ a soldier would have to know chemistry!

Of course, his father didn't make it any easier: Being the son of Spyro wasn't the glamorous role that many of his former peers had believed it to be. The pressure was enormous, and Lucas just wasn't like his father in most respects. He didn't even look like him: The obsidian-black scales and the wolfish, sapphire-blue eyes that had earned him his named in no way indicated his descent.

Luckily, most of the students he had come across didn't really expect too much of him — at least, they didn't expect him to be perfect…like most of his _teachers_ seemed to… Captain Asperverus was the exception: He expected _everyone_ to be perfect.

Which was why Lucas was in such a hurry to get to class — that and he actually _enjoyed_ this one. It always boggled him: the amount of information that one had to learn to become an officer in the Dragon Army.

Learning to fight was only the tip of the iceberg — dragons, being natural predators, didn't need much training in that regard. Military strategy and protocol, on the other hand, were some of the weightiest subjects that Lucas had ever contemplated. He had had to study his tail off just to keep adequately in his head the lists of procedures for what to do if his squad was ambushed, how they were supposed to arrange themselves, the prioritization of responses…

At that wasn't the half of it: Such basic subjects as Chemistry, Biology, English (why _that_ one was in there, Lucas would _never_ understand), Mathematics, and History (Lucas liked that one — about the only thing that he felt that he had gotten from his father) were also central, and those were just the basics! On top of that came Ballistics, Flying, Close Quarters Combat (CQC), and Elemental Integration — everyone was trained to use a particular element or combination of elements in general combat.

And _that_ – magic in general – constituted yet another enormous chunk of course load. Magic was a far broader study than Lucas had originally credited it to be: There was not only elemental magic, but also general, ubiquitous magic, incantational magic, and forms of magic that Lucas couldn't even pronounce, let alone master.

Lucas had never felt particularly prodigious in magical study — in fact, he was barely above par in practically all of his classes. He had therefore been surprised to find out that he was blessed with control of _two_ elements – Shadow and Ice – rather than just one like most of his peers, and he was actually fairly skilled regarding elemental magic.

It was the _other_ forms that he couldn't get down: Teleportation, telekinesis (something that practically no dragon mastered anyway, so it didn't worry him), and transmogrification were facets of magic that he felt certain that he would never grasp. Thankfully, those were not central to his curriculum. If he had wanted to be a _teacher_, like his parents, that would have been a different story…

But he wasn't like his parents — at least, not his father. He was probably much more similar to Cynder…he had inherited her scales, after all…

_That's stupid_, he thought, skidding slightly as he rounded a curve too tightly and rocketed down the hallway. He was almost there.

Another thing that made classes awkward was age: Most of the students, like him, were about seven years old, but there were also the more adult dragons who were joining the army. There were even some students _younger_ than he: One of them, for example – Emvray, a Shadow and Wind dragon – was only five. (Ironically, he tended to be in the top of the class. _Figures_, Lucas often told himself with a wry smile.)

Despite the difficulties, Lucas – much to his happiness – was, in fact, progressing: He had managed to pass his required basic courses, with only two nonmilitary, specialized classes – Toxicology and Flying – remaining. After that and TNT, he would only have the advanced classes left — and they were pretty much just more fastidious versions of their predecessors.

But to _pass_ TNT, he would have to _get_ to TNT!

He was almost there: The room was just up this hall, around the corner, first room on the left —

"Made it!" he gasped, staggering to a breathless halt next to Emvray, who gave him an amused look coupled with an almost pitying grimace. He raised one paw and pointed at something over Lucas's right shoulder. Lucas turned.

Captain Asperverus was standing next to the door through which he had just burst; his steely blue eyes were not welcoming. _Oh, great…_

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Lucas crept through the brush, his black scales merging effectively with the subfuscous shades of the swamp. He was relieved that Asperverus hadn't chewed him out _too_ severely — no more than usual, anyway; and he had not interdicted him from accompanying the class on their outdoor exercise for the morning.

Their objective was to sneak their way through the swamp undetectably to a prearranged rendezvous point some two or three kilometers to the west of where they had begun.

Though the distance was short, it was practically impossible to move quickly through a swamp in broad daylight in the winter without leaving behind a trail that even a blind dragonfly could follow. So as to minimize detection, they were not supposed to speak to one another at all — this _was_ supposed to be an individual exercise, after all. In fact, any movement was supposed to be considered hostile until proven otherwise.

That was why Lucas paused instantly when he heard the rustling of a bush to his left. He slid behind the cover of a thick, stumpy tree; he could have used his powers to cloak himself in shadows, but magic could be detected…

The sound came again, this time closer. A small red dragon came partially into view, the forward half of his body protruding from the bushes as he reconnoitered the area. Not seeing Lucas, he crept slowly out into the open.

A small, trickling stream studded with smooth stones bisected the little clearing where they were. Lucas, grinning to himself, slid out from behind the tree and pounced on top of his classmate, splattering him with fetid, murky water.

"What the — "

"You're not very sneaky," Lucas taunted, letting him up. Zetch glared at him with his amber eyes, shaking off droplets of filthy swamp water all over him.

"You're not funny!" he told him seriously, though his mouth split in a grin the moment the last word escaped.

"What were you doing making so much noise?" Lucas asked.

"I tripped!"

"Twice?"

"Well…yeah, sort of…"

"Well," Lucas boasted, "if you were an enemy soldier I'd have killed you easily!"

"And I'd have killed both of you," remarked a quiet voice behind them. Lucas turned, wildly fearing that maybe Asperverus had found them – they _had_ been making a lot of noise – but the voice was not his: It was Emvray's.

The little black dragon materialized out of thin air, as though stepping through a veil of billowing shadows.

"Yipes!" exclaimed Zetch, jumping, "Where'd you come from?" Emvray grinned.

"Everywhere," he answered cryptically, "Nowhere."

"Whatever," Zetch said, rolling his eyes, recovered from his initial shock. Lucas, being a Shadow dragon himself, was used to it.

"We should probably get going," he reminded them, "If we hang around any longer, Asperverus will probably find us."

"_Captain_ Asperverus," Emvray corrected him.

"Yeah."

"Shh!" said Zetch suddenly, amber eyes widening slightly, "I hear something!" They all paused: A soft, crepitating sound was coming from the trees to the west — just ahead of them.

"What is that?" whispered Lucas, trying to discern if the noise was something he recognized, like the crunch of a rabbit's paw on grass, but to no avail.

"Sounds like someone trying to sneak through the trees," Emvray noted softly; he melted back into the shadows.

"Cut that out!" hissed Zetch. Emvray made no reply — for all they knew, he could have been gone. Lucas considered cloaking himself as well, but he decided against it: It was a power with which he still found difficulty, and being invisible didn't mean that he couldn't be heard; he would probably have better luck trusting to his dark scales to camouflage him.

"Come on," he whispered to Zetch, "Let's check it out." They crept forward through the brush, bellies to the ground, slithering their way from cover to cover as they had been trained to do.

It was then that Lucas registered just how cold it was: The wind – which was blowing in from the north – was sharp and frigid; it invaded his lungs and lit cold fire there, fire that ignited the air and made each breath sting. Spring mornings usually weren't this frightfully cold — especially not in the swamp.

Horripilation shot down Lucas's spine, and he could almost feel the adrenaline beginning to course through his blood. He and Zetch continued to slink towards the noise, which seemed to be progressing northward.

A minute or two later, they came to a new clearing – even smaller than the one that they had left – with short, sickly-looking grass half submersed in the brownish water that seemed to characterize the swamp.

A dragon was crossing the clearing at a rapid pace. His heavy paws thumping on the watery grass were producing the crepitating sound that they had heard. His scales were of a dingy sort of gray. His build was stocky and broad, like a rat.

"Who are you?" asked Zetch loudly, surprising Lucas. _What are you doing?!_ Zetch approached the stranger, who, at the sound of his voice, had paused, shoulders tensed, tail rigid, paws grasping almost desperately at the soggy grass beneath them, head bowed, back slightly arched. Zetch repeated his question.

The dragon made no reply: He remained inert in his posture of readiness, a very minute trembling coming over him as Zetch, repeating his question more urgently – and somewhat more obnoxiously – drew nearer — like a curious, unsuspecting mouse investigating an awaiting trap.

Lucas, like the stranger, remained unmoving, paralyzed by both confusion and a strange sensation that he could describe only as intuitive fear, watching apprehensively as Zetch persistently pursued his interrogation, oblivious to the dragon's posture, his bunched muscles, arched back and raised shoulders, tilted head, rigid, uplifted tail —

The dragon moved, spun on his heels, whipping his tail across Zetch's face, sending a ribbon of blood through the air as he launched his second blow, a heavy slam from his right paw to the young dragon's back.

Lucas lunged forward, trying to block the stranger's follow-up attack but succeeding only in sustaining the third blow on his own shoulder; the force of the attack floored him and sent the breath eructing from his lungs; he rolled to his left, barely avoiding a stab from the dragon's tail that could easily have been fatal, and he leaped to his paws just in time to see Zetch, recovering from the startling assault, pounce on his attacker: The dragon caught him midair with a ramming head butt to the abdomen, flinging him to the ground where he rolled toward the edge of the clearing and slammed into a tree.

Lucas jumped forward and slashed with his claws; the dragon, distracted by his altercation with Zetch, received the blow on the right side of his face; Lucas felt blood pour like thick, hot water over his paw, but the dragon countered quickly, using Lucas's own momentum to hurl him several feet forward, crashing into the underbrush at the periphery of the clearing.

Lucas bounced up, his fall having been softened by the dense and watery foliage, and spotted the dragon just in time to see Emvray, dropping his shadowy cloak, land on top of his head, clawing at his trunk-like muzzle, causing blood to spray out in a scarlet haze. Lucas bounded forward to help him, but the dragon threw Emvray off and darted away towards the trees.

Zetch, staggering to his paws, lurched forward and caught him by the hind leg, digging his claws into his scales; the dragon turned and whacked him across the head, wrenched his leg free, and resumed his flight, vanishing quickly through the trees, blood sprinkling the air behind him. Lucas raced up to Zetch, who was again staggering to his feet.

"You okay, Zetch?" The red dragon was breathing heavily, blood tracing rivulets along his scales, a web of red on red. His amber eyes flickered like evanescent flames, and his legs quivered as he struggled to hold himself up.

"Did…did I get…did I get him?" was all he asked. Lucas, somewhat scared by the hoarseness of his voice – it sounded like there was blood caught in his throat, and he was struggling to keep it down – replied tremulously:

"I dunno, Zetch." Zetch, breathing raggedly, coughed – a horrible, crackling cough – spattering blood on the ground in front of him.

"Dang," he croaked. With that word, he collapsed, his amber eyes staring blankly at a bush, whose branches were stirring gently in the cold, boreal wind.

Zetch was dead.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Scabré entered the narrow, dimly lit space that served as the vestibule for the interrogation room; there was no furnishing aside from the two doors: one leading back outside, one into the room where the detainee was now awaiting, staring nervously at the two-way glass that would show him only his own reflection while those on the other side could see him clearly.

There was a dragon observing the prisoner: Scabré's partner, Trigren, a stocky, dark green dragon with scintillating orange eyes.

"Has he said anything?" Scabré asked. The prisoner was sitting behind the table that – aside from the two dim candelabra – constituted the interrogation room's only items of furniture, looking back and forth nervously.

"Not a word," replied Trigren in his deep, rumbling voice, "I was just about to start questioning him when I got your message that you wanted to do it yourself."

"Has he asked for legal counsel?"

"No," answered Trigren, shaking his huge head, "I read him his rights, but he waived them."

"When was that?"

"When I brought him in here — about twenty minutes ago, immediately after the incident."

"Hmm…He may have jumped the gun," Scabré mused, "Never hurts to be sure." Trigren nodded, and Scabré entered the interrogation room.

The prisoner – the mucous-colored dragon that had attempted to assault him in the streets – instantly fixed his watery gray eyes on his interrogator.

"I have been informed," Scabré began frostily, beginning a slow, deliberate promenade around his subject, "that you have waived your rights to legal counsel. Is this correct?"

"Y-Yes," the nervous prisoner replied.

"Are you certain?" Scabré asked delicately, framing the question in a particularly prim, supercilious manner, "If you waive said rights, then anything you tell me can be used against you."

"I…I understand that, sir." _Sir_, thought Scabré. _That is interesting…_

"Then we may begin. What is your name?" He continued to stalk around him in a meticulous circle, asking his questions in a soft, cold voice. Hopefully, the intimidation scheme would work, and this dragon would cough up everything. He looked about ready to do it right now.

"M-My name?"

"Yes, my friend," said Scabré with a small smile that was obviously phony, "your name. I cannot help you if you will not tell me something so simple as your _name_." The dragon hesitated.

"My name is — my name is Daininé." Scabré paused momentarily in his promenade and then recommenced, smiling coldly:

"No it isn't. What is your name?" The dragon looked alarmed.

"Tremon."

"That's more like it. Now, Tremon, let us talk about your attempted assault on me in the streets a couple of hours ago."

"T-That was not what it was," Tremon protested feebly. Scabré stopped abruptly and swooped down upon him.

"You were raising your claws against an officer of the Royal Police!" he snarled, "What would _you_ call it?" Tremon did not reply.

Scabré knew that the assault charge was a weak case: Tremon had done nothing more than lift his paw with his claws unsheathed, which, technically speaking, wasn't illegal, although it did give Scabré grounds to take defensive action — albeit not to charge him. Vunoire's legal system was convoluted at best and downright bamboozled at worst: There was no way that such a flimsy case would hold water.

But still, Tremon did not know that. Scabré resumed his promenade.

"You were working for the assassin," he continued, trying to lead the subject into divulging something, "You were to provide a distraction so that he could murder that dragon, Maren. You — "

"It was not like that!" Tremon blurted out. Scabré paused and gave him a prompting look. "I — I was not working for him."

"What would _you_ call it?" Scabré repeated, this time in a delicate, scornful voice.

"I — I was coerced."

"Is that so? Do you realize, my friend, how many times I hear that a day — ?"

"It is the truth!" Tremon insisted tremulously. "He threatened me!" Scabré paused.

"He threatened you?" he repeated disbelievingly.

"Yes! Well, not me directly."

"Who then?" Tremon did not answer. Scabré leaned in closer to him.

"Tremon," he began in a tone half disdainful and half paternal…but all frank, "You are facing charges of assault on an officer of the Royal Police _and_ of being an accessory to murder — very serious crimes, indeed. If you are not honest with me…there is nothing I can do for you.

"Look at it this way: If you help us, I can tell the arbiter that it was by your vital assistance and full cooperation with the law that we tracked down and apprehended this notorious murderer, and you will likely receive clemency. But if you do not – for _whatever reason_ – then you will most likely be found guilty of being his accomplice…and you will go down with him when we _do_ find him — because make no mistake, we _will_ find him.

"Which will it be?" Tremon would not meet his eyes: His timorous, anguished gaze wandered over the room, alighting on anything that would divert its attention from the crossroads looming before him; finally, he spoke, in the wearied, harrowed, empty tone of one who saw no other option:

"It is my sister: She is very sick and in the hospital." He gave the name. "I have been forced into certain…illicit activities to pay her bills. He…He threatened me — said that if I did not do as he ordered me, he would kill her!"

"In a hospital?" Scabré asked with faux naïveté.

"The hospitals are worthless!" Tremon cried desperately, "They are dumps! But they are my only choice! I have done many things wrong in my life, sir, but I _love_ _my sister_. She is the only innocence I have left."

"Very well. So…what? You were walking down the street, minding your own business, and a nefarious assassin just walks up to you and blackmails you into being an accessory to his next murder?" Tremon was shaking his head in frustration before he had even finished the question.

"No, no, no, of course not! I — I was in a tavern — "

"What tavern?" Scabré interrupted.

"Wh-What does _that_ matter?" Tremon stammered incredulously.

"It could be very important," Scabré answered him primly, "What is the name of the tavern?" Tremon gave it: Scabré recognized it as a seedy establishment infamous for its connections to Vunoire's extensive criminal underground.

"So," Scabré said, "you were just sitting in this tavern, minding your own business, and a nefarious assassin just — "

"_No!_" interrupted the prisoner, truly desperate now; he was nearly driven to tears. "It was not like that!"

"Then tell me what it _was_ like, Tremon, or I cannot help you."

"I was in the tavern to try and find a job to pay for the most recent of my sister's surgeries. I-I was led — "

"By whom?"

"By my boss."

"Who is he?"

"…Basilisk."

"Ah, so that is who you work for." Scabré knew that name: Basilisk was the name of one of the most infamous of the mob bosses who ran the underworld in Vunoire; he had connections to criminal leagues all over the kingdom…and even in the adjacent ones.

"Yes — well, sometimes. Anyway, he led me to a table, told me that someone wanted to speak to me about a job. He called him an 'acquaintance of his' — "

"An _acquaintance_?" repeated Scabré, "Basilisk does not have _acquaintances_, Tremon: He has subordinates and enemies…and nothing else."

"I do not know why he called him that," Tremon bleated, "but that is what he said."

"Very well. You went to the table to meet this _acquaintance_, and…?"

"And it was him. Basilisk left, and the dragon — "

"What is his name?" Scabré asked, unable to keep the fierce hunger out of his voice: He had been tracking this killer for months, and he had never been closer to learning his name.

"He — He did not tell me!" Tremon stammered, alarmed by the investigator's sudden ardency. Scabré scoffed.

"Describe him!" he said imperiously.

"B-Blue scales…blood-red eyes…slight build…very muscular, though…he looked…_average_…"

"What did he say to you?"

"He began to speak of a job, and then — "

"What was the job?" asked Scabré somewhat pointedly — he was still rather upset about not knowing the name.

"It…It was some minor burglary job, completely trivial…but then he began to speak of murdering a dragon named Maren. I did not understand, and I told him this. It was then that he threatened me, told me that if I did not help him, he would kill my sister. He assured me that he could get to her, and as he proof he gave me the name of the hospital where she is and even the name of the surgeon who performed her last operation! I was terrified!"

"What did he tell you about the plan?" Tremon blinked confusedly.

"P-Plan? What plan?"

"The plan to murder Maren!" snarled Scabré, "One does not attempt murder without a plan!"

"H-He told me nothing!" Tremon stammered, "I swear! After he threatened me, he told me that he would contact me in the next few days to tell me what to do. He said that if I told _anyone_, my sister was dead."

"And when was this?"

"Three days ago; he contacted me the next morning, told me to be on that street at that time and to provide a distraction — he suggested that I pick a fight with someone."

"And you listened to him?"

"He threatened my sister!" Tremon was becoming increasingly agitated. "Please, you must protect her! She knows nothing of my crimes, she is innocent — please, do not let him hurt her — !"

"I have no intentions of allowing any innocent blood to be spilt for _your_ inadequacies," Scabré answered coldly. He stood. "If that is all you have to tell me, Tremon, I will be going. You shall remain here until I can verify your story."

"What about my sister?" Tremon demanded desperately as Scabré crossed to the door. He paused and turned around.

"I will assign an officer to watch her." He left before Tremon could utter any reply.

"We're getting so close," said Trigren the moment Scabré closed the door, "We'll get him yet!"

"Yes," replied Scabré, composing his thoughts, "but first things first: Trigren, assign someone to watch the hospital, make sure nothing happens to the girl — discreetly."

"Of course."

"I will head down there and talk with her — see if her brother's story makes sense. Then I will head down to speak to some of my contacts to see if I can confirm this collusive get-together."

A few minutes later, Scabré stepped out of the station onto the sunlit, windswept street. He hurried along his paved path towards the hospital — it was only a few blocks away; it was one of the more major hospitals in Vunoire…not that that said much.

The grass that grew in slightly irregular polygons along the sides of the road was still emaciated by its hiemal deprivation: The sumptuous greens of spring had yet to grace the blades and rejuvenate the dreary, grayish streets; the northern wind lashed mercilessly at the sickly stalks of grass.

Scabré quickened his pace: A cold wind was rising.


	4. Blood and Echoes

**CHAPTER 4**

"Blood and Echoes"

"What the heck happened?" demanded Spyro, still completely stunned even though he had received the news of Zetch's death nearly an hour before.

"We're still trying to figure that out," replied Commander Ligario, a huge, formidable-looking dragon with scarlet scales and piercing, majestic green eyes.

They were making their way along the lowest of the three tiers of walkways that girded the Temple's western side, heading to the medical station to which Zetch's body – and Lucas and Emvray – had been brought.

When Ligario had first given him the news, Spyro had felt his heart skip a beat: His first thoughts (he was nearly ashamed to admit it) flew not to the dead boy but to his own son, who could so easily have been killed as well. He had been teaching a class when Ligario had walked in, and he had forced himself to complete the lesson – which had nearly been over anyway – before he could properly see to the matter. However much it sickened him at times, the apparently adventitious death of a single student was not grounds for his shirking his own duties, at least not immediately…even if his son was involved.

The moment they had begun their trek to the med station, Spyro began to ply the commander with questions, which Ligario had answered with patient candor. Other officers might have tried to speak dissemblingly to avoid any sort of negative reaction from him, but Spyro knew Ligario of old – had known him for years – and he knew him well enough to be sure that if he said that he did not know anything, he did not know anything.

That made things no easier.

They continued in silence the rest of the way, a chilly wind slapping at their faces as they followed the contours of the Temple's side, eventually reaching the medical station: It was a sort of bulbous structure – resembling a kiln or a very short tower – that had five entrances, two leading inside the Temple and three opening out into the winter air, the room being separated from it by only a thick but light, translucent curtain.

"Who was the doctor on station when they brought him in?" Spyro asked Ligario as they crossed the southern portière. Ligario cast him a grim look.

"Your daughter, sir." Spyro's heart skipped a beat again. A slightly nauseous feeling came over him — he wasn't sure why: His daughter being the doctor on station to receive the dead student wasn't exactly a cause for concern, but somehow it just deepened his anxiety for his son, and it exacerbated a gnawing feeling that lurked in his gut that there was something, some terrible detail, that he didn't know…

He spotted his daughter forward and to his left, standing over a table whose cargo was covered with a thick white cloth; he made his way across the room, weaving around other tables and through a few other doctors until he reached her.

Arial looked up. Her emerald eyes glistened somberly and with a tired gleam that caused Spyro ineffable anguish: It was the look of someone much older. He saw it in her every time she worked on a child. She – along with the other doctors – wore a sort of hoodless shawl of an antiseptic white, upon which were pinned over the shoulders two epaulettes: a silver captain's insignia on the left and a golden caduceus on the right. Her name was stitched in a brilliantly sanguinary red below the former where it hovered just above her heart.

"What happened, Arial?" Spyro asked her in the gentle tone that he found he always adopted when speaking with his daughter. She shook her head melancholically.

"They didn't tell me much — Captain Asperverus took Lucas and Emvray over there by the interior doors. All I really know is that Zetch and the others got into a fight with some dragon in the swamp and Zetch was killed. The other two are fine," she added quickly, though it was evident that she was referring primarily to her brother, to Spyro's son, "just a couple of scratches."

"How did Zetch die?" Spyro asked quietly, trying to mask his relief at Lucas's safety.

"I won't know for sure until I do the autopsy," Arial replied in a more clinical, doctoral tone, "From what I saw in my initial examination, he sustained several superficial cuts all over his body; there appeared to be at least two broken ribs, as well as a minor cerebral hemorrhage. There were several hematomata all over his abdomen and chest — most likely blunt force trauma. I won't have an official cause of death until I perform the autopsy." Spyro sighed. How had this happened?

He looked back at Arial: The drained, empty look had returned to her eyes. He dropped his voice to a low murmur:

"Hey, kiddo — you okay?" Arial looked up at him and forced a wan smile.

"Yeah… It's just harder when they're this young…" Spyro nodded and touched her shoulder gently with the tip of his tail.

"I know. Where did you say Lucas was?"

"Over there." She gestured towards the pair of doors that led into the Temple proper; following her gaze, Spyro caught sight of Lucas's relucent black scales.

"Thanks." He headed off through the crowd, not as hurriedly this time, finally reaching his son: Lucas and Emvray, the little black-scaled, maroon-eyed dragon whom he remembered Cynder calling a prodigy of sorts, were sitting between the two doors, looking almost misplaced.

Captain Asperverus, whom Spyro had seen just a moment ago next to them, had evidently left; glancing around, Spyro spotted him in what appeared to be a rather vehement discussion with a nurse.

"How are you two?" Spyro asked. They looked up at him; their eyes were shaken and confused, as though someone had stolen something from them and they did not know where the perpetrator had gone. They had the same bewildered, breathless air of an amnesiac struggling to regain his memories.

"Yeah, fine…" muttered Lucas listlessly, his lupine, sapphire eyes roaming the room desultorily. Emvray did not reply — either he was more shaken than Lucas or he felt intimidated by Spyro's presence and paternal tone. Spyro decided it was the latter: Though both sported scratches, Lucas undeniably was the worse for wear; Emvray was nearly unscathed.

"You're sure?" asked Spyro, knowing that they weren't. Emvray managed to nod, and Lucas repeated his faint "Yeah, fine…" Spyro waited a moment, in which the two younger dragons merely gazed absently and unseeingly at various items around the room (or, rather, Lucas did — Emvray kept his eyes firmly planted on his paws).

"I know how difficult it is to lose a friend," Spyro continued in a careful, delicate voice, "I'm sorry about Zetch." Uttering the dead dragon's name evoked a strange response in the back of his mind: He felt as if a fly were buzzing around in his head, searching in vain for some memory that was evidently of extreme importance. He mentally shook himself.

"I'm sorry," Spyro repeated, "I want Doctor Ambulo to speak with both of you, okay?" They both nodded mechanically. "Go talk to Captain Asperverus about seeing him — when you get the chance," he added, noticing through the corner of his eye that the captain's colloquy with the nurse was beginning to boil over a bit. Giving the two young dragons a last look of sympathy, he turned and hurried over to see what the argument was about.

" — don't care what — "

"Sir, please calm — "

"_Don't you tell me — !_"

"Is there a problem here?" Spyro interceded, flashing both dragons an imperious look. They broke apart, their anger replaced with embarrassment.

"No sir," replied Captain Asperverus with rigid military courtesy, looking down slightly, "I was just attempting to ascertain the details of my student's death."

"And I was just telling him, sir," shot back the nurse – a lieutenant – who was evidently less abashed, "that we do not _have_ that information yet! Doctor Arial has not yet done the autopsy."

"I'm aware of that, Lieutenant," said Spyro with a weary, tranquilizing look. "Captain," he added, turning to Asperverus, "until an autopsy has been performed, Zetch's cause of death is unknown." Verbalizing the deceased's name amplified the gnawing sensation in his mind. "I'm certain that the lieutenant has work to do, so please desist in pestering her for information that she does not have."

"Yes sir," mumbled Asperverus obsequiously. The lieutenant took the hint and scurried away.

"Now, Captain," continued Spyro in a lower, milder tone, "What exactly happened this morning?"

"Well, sir," began Asperverus, his voice husky and morose, "I took my class out into the swamp to perform an exercise: They were to make their way from the starting point at the base of the Temple to a rendezvous point approximately two point six kilometers to the west; they were to evade detection at all costs, and they were not supposed to speak to one another.

"Evidently, Lucas, Emvray, and Zetch met up with one another in the swamp, spotted an unknown dragon heading northward, and followed him. Upon discerning that he was not a part of the exercise, Zetch interrogated him as to who he was and why he was creeping around in the swamp; in response, the dragon attacked them, and in the ensuing brawl, Zetch was killed, and the dragon escaped." He paused, looking unsure of what else to say.

"So as far as we know, this dragon is still out there?" Asperverus looked slightly uncomfortable.

"I was informed, sir, that that was being handled by the DMI."

"Informed by whom?"

"By me, sir." Ligario appeared out of the crowd, coming up to Spyro, who instantly chided himself for having completely forgotten that the commander had even been present. "I happened to be passing by when Zetch was brought in," Ligario continued, "and I contacted the DMI's investigative branch; they have several officers working the case already."

"Good," muttered Spyro awkwardly, feeling decidedly discomposed: Zetch's name – mentioned first by Asperverus and then by Ligario – continued to produce that pestering feeling in the back of his mind, as though there were something that he had to remember, and his mind struggled to recall it from the depths of oblivion.

"Who's on the case?" he asked, attempting to dispel the growing vexation.

"One Lieutenant Katadioka — Captain Marius speaks highly of him," Ligario added, "A few other officers are running down miscellaneous leads, but Katadioka is endeavoring even as we speak to hunt down the perpetrator."

"Then until the autopsy is complete there's nothing left to do here," decided Spyro, failing to restrain a weary sigh.

"Afraid not, sir," agreed Ligario, "Although…there is the matter of Zetch's parents." Then, suddenly and all at once, it came to him: Spyro knew what he had been trying to remember, why Zetch's name was so provocative.

"I knew him," said Spyro slowly, not even realizing that his horrified thoughts were spilling out of his mouth, "I _knew_ him — I knew his parents, they're friends of mine, have been for seven years. I was there when Zetch was _born_, I _remember_ him! I — I _taught_ him, he was my _student!_"

Memories were flooding through him uncontrollably, deluging his mind with images of an ebullient youth with a dazzling, amiable smile and eyes of warm, shimmering amber; of a student who, while never far surpassing mediocrity, always poured his heart and soul into his work, who endeavored to do everything to the very best of his ability…and more; of a dragon who had been honest, true, and indiscriminately kindhearted —

His heart trembled and sank. Spyro felt as if he could hear that smiling child's death rattle echoing through his mind, amplified as it bounced around inside his skull; as if he could smell the sweet, metallic, searing scent of his blood as it spattered the ground, taking his life with it.

Zetch, the dead boy on the stretcher, had been his friend.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"How could you be so _incompetent?!_" Felador snarled at the blithering fool standing before him. The dingy gray dragon with his murky blue eyes cringed before his superior's wrath. They were standing on a remote, windswept cliff, the bleak winter sky sporting the same dingy hue as the dragon who now begged for mercy.

"They ambushed me!" he whined.

"AND WHOSE FAULT IS _THAT?!_" roared Felador, "_Six months of planning_ — you may have just thrown it all into the fire, you pusillanimous, worthless _wretch!_"

"But they know nothing!" the dragon assured him desperately, cowering before his vituperation, "They never got a clear look at me, and they know nothing about me or you or why I was there — "

"It does not _matter_, you fatuous _dolt!_" Felador spat, "They _know_ something's up! How — many — times," he bellowed, punctuating each word with a blow to the dragon's face, "did — I — _tell_ — you — that — detection — was — _absolutely_ — _indisputably _— _UNACCEPTABLE?!_"

The final word exploded from his throat and coincided with a resounding wallop that sent the wretch careening towards the edge of the cliff, vacillating precipitously between Felador's deadly rage and the equally deadly fall into the forest some two hundred meters below.

"Still," growled Felador with a calmness that was starkly disparate to the unbridled fury he had sported merely a moment ago, "your blunder may yet prove useful…"

"How?" asked the dragon with hoarse eagerness, determined to redeem himself. Felador cast him a look of supreme disdain. A cold wind from the north, somehow snaking its way through the mountains behind them, washed down over him. He paused momentarily to appreciate the delicious sensation it imparted.

"That," he said finally, approaching that miserable, worthless peon, "is no longer any of your concern." Before the dragon could even rearrange his features to reflect the quizzicality undoubtedly evoked by this remark, Felador ripped out his throat; blood poured in a crimson waterfall, painting the stone of the cliff, spattering Felador's paws, and depositing a fine, cerise mist on his chest.

The dragon, his last words garbled by his ravaged airway, gurgled and toppled over the cliff, plummeting down out of sight, a ribbon of blood following him like the tail of a comet or the ripples caused by the passage of some strange marine creature. His pitiful death rattle echoed through the thin air.

Felador spat on the bloodstained earth, turned, and walked away, an evil smile playing on his lips.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"Well?" asked Captain Marius blearily: It was barely noon and he was already exhausted. The intelligence officer with whom he was speaking shook his head.

"They're being very tightlipped, sir," he reported dejectedly, "All that I've managed to rustle up is that the syndicate's activity has increased substantially over the past several weeks — perhaps months."

"And we still haven't the foggiest idea _what_ they're up to?"

"Not a clue, sir. I'll keep shaking the trees to see what'll fall, but we may have to take a more aggressive approach."

"That could be dangerous," noted Marius, more to himself than to the lieutenant, "If we spook them into secreting and accelerating their plans, the consequences could be disastrous…"

"Intelligence appears to indicate a connection to Juzgara," offered the lieutenant helpfully, "Perhaps they know something more…?"

"It's worth a try."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"You can speak with her," the doctor informed Scabré, "but not for long — she's still weak from the surgery."

"Thank you," replied the detective politely, letting himself into the room.

Tremon's sister – whose name was Sinmaclée, as he had discovered from the doctor – was lying on a bed fashioned of soft cloths and what appeared to be globs of certain mosses. (Scabré wondered if that was against some sort of sanitary code…)

Sinmaclée was riddled with tubes like transparent snakes, unidentifiable fluids coursing through the intravenous network. The bags that held the fluids were hung on a little metal tree tucked into a corner in that paradoxically neat yet haphazard manner that seemed to characterize much of what went on in a hospital — at least, one of this sort, anyway.

The patient was awake, her clear blue eyes drifting around the room; she appeared sleepy, but the doctor had informed Scabré that she was not on any pain medications at the moment. Legally, she was lucid enough for him to speak with her.

"Good afternoon, ma'am," Scabré saluted her courteously, "I am Detective Scabré with the Vunoire Royal Police. I have come to ask you a few questions concerning your brother, Tremon."

"Tremon?" repeated Sinmaclée. Her eyes widened into misty orbs. "W-What has happened to him? Is he okay?"

"Your brother is fine," said Scabré soothingly. _At least that's partially the truth…_ "He was simply involved in a mix-up of sorts, and I must ask you some routine questions."

"Mix-up? What do you mean, Detective?" _Here we go_, thought Scabré. _Be careful how you phrase this…_

"It may be that he is privy to a crime," Scabré said delicately, "and any information that you or he can provide will be of great assistance to us."

"What kind of crime?"

"Are you aware, ma'am, of the murders that have been plaguing the streets these past months?"

"Yes, I have heard something of them. There is not much to do here except sleep and exchange news." Sinmaclée's eyes suddenly widened again. "Tremon is not hurt, is he?"

"No ma'am," Scabré assured her, very slightly miffed that she had failed to notice that his questions made it obvious that her brother was perfectly fine — not to mention that he had _told_ her so. "Your brother is simply in a position to give us valuable information…and you may be, as well."

"Information about what?"

"Firstly, can you vouch for your brother's character? Routine question," he added quickly, noticing the startled look on Sinmaclée's face.

"Tremon has always been a little…impetuous," Sinmaclée replied, "but he has a heart of gold. He has tried so hard…" _An adoring, devoted sister_, Scabré thought. _Tremon does not deserve her_.

"Would there be any reason for us to distrust his information?"

"Of course not!"

"A routine question, ma'am," Scabré said disarmingly, "A routine question. Is there anything you can tell me about these murders?"

"Probably nothing that you don't already know, Detective," answered Sinmaclée with a slightly confused look, "We hear things here, but mostly secondhand."

"Have you heard anything that stands out to you as peculiar?" Sinmaclée hesitated. "Anything at all? Even things that seem insignificant?"

"Well," she began, "there _was_ one thing: About a week ago, a strange dragon came to me and told me that he was one of Tremon's coworkers. He said that Tremon had been unable to visit me that day and that Tremon had asked him to look in on me."

"Do you know who the dragon was?" Scabré asked.

"No," answered Sinmaclée sadly, "but what was strange was that he told me that he and my brother would be on a business trip – Tremon works for a sales firm – to Juzgara within the next week…but Tremon visited me only a couple days later, and when I asked him about it, he told me that there was no such business trip scheduled.

"I did not think much of it," she continued thoughtfully, "but now…it strikes me as very odd…" She looked at Scabré with uneasy hopefulness, perhaps expecting him to ease her worries.

"I'm certain that it is no cause for alarm," Scabré lied smoothly. _A strange visitor? I wonder who…_ "All the same, could you describe the dragon?"

"Yes — he was a blue dragon, rather limber-looking, and he had the most horrible, blood-red eyes!" Sinmaclée added, shocked that such a thing could exist.

_Most interesting_, Scabré thought. _The same description as the one Tremon gave of the murderer. Most interesting indeed —_

But he was out of time: Sinmaclée's eyes were drooping, and she appeared to be on the verge of falling into deep slumber.

"Well, I will leave you in peace to rest, ma'am." He stood. "Thank you very much for your time; you have been very helpful."

"I do not feel like I have," said Sinmaclée in a bleary, melancholy voice. Scabré smiled soothingly.

"Any information that you can give us can do nothing but help, ma'am. I will return with further questions and with news of your brother: I'm sure that you are anxious to hear from him." Sinmaclée nodded, but her care for her brother was giving way to physical exhaustion. Scabré left.

After speaking briefly with the doctor, ensuring that the latter understood that he would be returning, he conversed with the dragon who had been sent over by Trigren to guard Sinmaclée. After this, he departed from the hospital, walking out onto the sunlit streets.

The sun was just passing its noonday peak, casting its thin, orange rays over the city. The air had somehow gotten even colder, and the wind was intensifying, impaling Vunoire's denizens with howling blades of frigidity; the skimpy grass quaked cravenly beneath the aerial onslaught.

The wind's cries ricocheted off of walls, flew down alleys that amplified them a thousandfold; the reverberations were almost unbelievable. In the bright sunlight, which in places turned the stone a sort of bloody red-orange, the sound was ineffably eerie.

Scabré shuddered and set out at a swift pace. He would rustle up a few contacts, send out a few feelers, and then he would check out this mystery business trip to Juzgara:

Juzgara was the capital of the kingdom that shared its name, and it lay to the south of Vunoire on one of the four islands that were collectively termed the Northern Isles. A business trip to Juzgara…that was strange. Juzgara was landlocked, and it wasn't likely that much business would be done there — at least, not business of a corporate nature. Sure, it _was_ the capital, but still…

_This is all quite peculiar_, Scabré mused. _A stranger matching the murderer's description implicates a business sojourn in Juzgara? Why? _It made no sense to say anything past informing Sinmaclée that her brother was unable to visit her. Why take the chance?

_Thrill-seeker?_ _…No. _He had been too careful, too methodical, too obsessively prevaricative to run such a potentially catastrophic risk. _Even so…why not capitalize on it? If he mentioned Juzgara, it is possible that that is where he will be._

Scabré thought about that: It was certainly a long shot, but why would he have specifically mentioned Juzgara if there were not some reason?

_Perhaps this is a red herring._ Scabré considered the possibility: It would certainly fit the profile that had been assembled of the killer, but if that were the case, it would constitute an overly complex and perhaps absurdly manipulative ruse that had little chance of success.

You're_ falling for it_. That brought a wry smile. More seriously, though, if he _didn't_ run down the lead, it could end up being majorly important.

_Why not?_ he asked himself again. He had no answer. _Why not? While my contacts are running down leads…why not take a trip to Juzgara?_

He began to refine his tentative plan. Trigren could cover him at the station, that would be no problem — and he would only be gone a day at most.

_But I'm getting ahead of myself: I still have to make sure that this isn't a wild goose chase. _He could figure out what firm that Tremon worked at (_I should have asked her that…_ he chided himself), and he would make some surreptitious inquiries to determine if such a trip ever actually existed. It probably didn't. It if were more of a sub-rosa activity, then he would be able to confirm it through his underground contacts.

He would find out. He would discover the truth.

_I'll get you_, Scabré vowed fiercely, as though the ferocity of his thoughts would propel them across space and deposit them in the scheming mind of his opponent in this deadly game. _I _will_ get you yet._

The echo of the howling winds accentuated his self-adjuration, and he quickened his pace into the sanguinary light of the dying sun.


	5. Gathering Darkness

**CHAPTER 5**

"Gathering Darkness"

"He insists on seeing you, Your Majesty," said Natalia somewhat tiredly. King Parcel scowled.

"How did he get past all of the security?" he demanded, "This doesn't sound particularly exigent…"

"No, Your Majesty," Natalia agreed mechanically, "but he is insistent, and the Oyente let him pass."

"Very well," grumbled the King of Juzgara sourly, "Let him in."

"Yes, Your Majesty." Natalia crossed the opulent chamber to the rosewood door, which she then opened. "His Highness will see you now, sir."

The dragon whom she addressed entered; he was slender and small, but sinewy and well-built, with ruddy eyes and cerulean scales. There was a spasmodic sort of look to his countenance, as though he could not remain still for a single moment: His eyes were constantly flitting almost deviously from one object of scrutiny to the next. He resembled a fox — or perhaps a wolf with hackles raised.

"I pray that you have a particularly important issue to bring to my attention," began Parcel imperiously, "This is a breach of decorum, and I am at a loss to understand why the Oyente — "

"I'm afraid that the matter could not wait, Your Majesty," interrupted the interloper, the antonomasia more akin to a sneer than to a gesture of respect.

"What is it?" demanded Parcel, narrowing his eyes. Something about this dragon struck him as odd…

"I have something very important to tell you."

"Well, what is it?" Parcel was growing impatient.

"Long ago," answered the audacious suppliant in a singsong voice, "in the land of Vunoire, three dragons assembled at midday to settle once for all grievous issues without delay.

"Fierce was the conflict of the first's heart, who sought only the truth by no devious art; the second was ill-willed and nefarious throughout — and to him belonged the blame of all malefaction about.

"The third was that helpless individual who seeks nothing but peace, yet in return he garners naught but unease; he is tortured and afflicted, upbraided, maligned, and in the talons of the second he is helplessly entwined.

"By laborious climax the truth was revealed, and the culprit identified, the secret unsealed; the third was struck down by the second in vengeance, though he had done nothing to deserve this sentence —

"For in fact it was the second of whom blood was demanded, for it was he who had perpetrated these crimes unfounded; and he struck down the third to bring pain to the first: that noble dragon — for truth his only thirst.

"And this first watched in horror, inert and unhelpful, as the second took the third's life in spite ever hateful; and as the third's blood stained the paws of the first…this day became also the second's hearse." The dragon stopped speaking, allowing his poetical words to sink in.

Parcel was confused: He had no trouble understanding what the dragon had said _per se_, but he was unsure what was meant by it. What was so important about this elegy? Evidently the stranger noted his hesitance:

"Tell me, Your Majesty, do you not perceive that the first dragon – upon whose paws rested the irreproachable blood of the third – failed in his duty to defend from the second the innocent one?" Parcel did not reply immediately. _What is this blabbering dragon _getting _at…?_

"I cannot say," he answered slowly, deciding to play along in hopes of discovering the stranger's intent (he _had_ said it was important, after all), "that the first dragon is guilty of any crime. You yourself said that he 'sought only the truth by no devious art.'"

"Indeed," countered the stranger swiftly, "but he allowed the second dragon to slaughter the third, when it was the former and not the latter whose 'blood was demanded.'"

"You say that these three dragon met to settle 'grievous issues'…'at midday'…in Vunoire…and the second, who was guilty of some crime — "

"Of perfidy," hissed the stranger, suddenly intense.

" — of some perfidy, killed the third, who was innocent — but the first was unaware of all this and, in the confusion of the moment, was rendered helpless? So he is culpable for the death of the third at the hands of the second…for not having killed the second first?"

"Verily you have discerned the truth," said the dragon with a sage nod; his remark could have been laudatory…or mocking. Parcel narrowed his eyes: A suspicion had fluttered up in his mind.

"Whence comes this parable?" he asked.

"From an ancient story paralleling a present story," replied the stranger cryptically.

"This is happening now?"

"Blood is still demanded," was the oblique reply.

"You are a fool," objurgated Parcel, "The story you have told occurred barely over a dozen years ago: It was during the final years of the Dark War. The first dragon is Spyro, Commander in Chief of the Dragon Army, formerly – at that time – the Fire Guardian of the Dragon Temple; he is the noble, truth-seeking dragon of whom you speak.

"The second dragon was named Javert; formerly an officer of the Dragon Army, he was revealed to be the turncoat who had been plaguing the Light Armies for six long years. And the third dragon was Croiseau, a dragon with a conflicted past who was presumed to be the spy — and whose only fault was his zeal to not be stigmatized by his former crimes, real or fanciful."

"Verily you have discerned the truth," repeated the dragon with a twisted, cryptic smile. His ruddy eyes gleamed savagely.

"So what is the importance of this?" demanded Parcel fiercely, his patience at an end.

"Blood is still demanded." Yet another repetition.

"If you have nothing of significance to tell me," growled Parcel dangerously, "then you will depart from my presence."

"I was unaware that Juzgaran law permitted such infractions of _noblesse oblige_," quipped the stranger with feigned innocence.

"OUT!" roared Parcel. The dragon left. Natalia, who had observed the entire conversation and who now, at the sight of the commotion, wore a timorous, anxious expression, stepped forward apprehensively.

"Y-Your Majesty? I could…have him detained — "

"Yes," barked Parcel, "do that, Natalia." He had originally intended to simply sweep the fool out of his sight, but now he considered that it might be better to incarcerate him for a brief period — perhaps that would teach him some etiquette…

_The audacity — !_

"Your Majesty!" He looked up: Natalia had left and then returned in his momentary lapse into unbridled inner fury; she wore a ghastly, wide-eyed expression.

"Yes?"

"He is gone! Vanished!"

"Vanished?" repeated Parcel, "How?"

"I do not know, Your Majesty — but the guards did not see him leave!"

"Assemble a search team," ordered the king, "Scour this castle — I want him found…and brought to me."

"Y-Yes, Your Majesty." She scurried out. Parcel began to pace, fuming to himself. Yet in the midst of the tempest of his anger – he wasn't even sure _why_ he was so angry – a ray of confusion broke the clouds: Why had the stranger come?

He paused in his promenade. What had the stranger said was so important…?

_He said that 'blood is still demanded.'_ Of whom? _Of the one who is guilty…_

Parcel shook his head: Javert was dead, had been so for years; Spyro had killed him immediately after the traitor had murdered Croiseau —

Parcel's heart skipped a beat, confusion yielding to clarity: It was of _Spyro_ that blood was demanded…for not having defended Croiseau.

The question was…was this babbling soothsayer merely that, a babbling soothsayer…or did he intend to actuate his own prophecy? Parcel could not be sure. It was suddenly more imperative that the mysterious dragon be detained and then interrogated.

_Should I tell Spyro?_ Parcel shook his head: There was no hint of danger…yet.

_To think, this began as an ordinary day…_

— — — — — *** — — — — —

The sun was setting over the Enchanted Forest, casting its bloody rays over the sinister trees whose shadows seemed unnaturally large and mobile. The whole forest appeared to crawl with living darkness, and the normally picturesque, faint golden light of the dying sun did nothing to alleviate the ominous air of the woods — rather, it amplified it.

The mountains that bounded the forest on the north were high and jagged, with snowy peaks that clawed at the sky like the keen talons of some monstrous bird of prey; they splintered the sunlight into shards of white-gold that glistened in the increasingly cold air of the dewy spring evening, casting the precipitous cliffs into deep shadow — exactly the shade of a vulture's feathers.

Felador stalked along one such cliff, his eyes darting back and forth, making sure that he was not followed — not that that was likely: No one really lived in the Enchanted Forest aside from the Avalarans – who were far to the southeast – and a few scant marauders, who would have no reason to pester him.

Still, he clung to the enshrouding shadows, trusting to them to conceal his salient appearance; he made his way along the mountainside, picking his way steadily upward, finally arriving at a large yet inconspicuous cave. He entered.

He was deluged in deepest black for a moment, but then, as he delved farther into the heart of the mountain, lambent light – like that of a multitude of flames – began to percolate sluggishly through the dusty air. He quickened his pace.

Finally, Felador debouched into a large, open space: There were rows upon rows of whirring machines – whose din had been muffled by the portentous mountains – attended by various dragons. The crowded, vaulted room was stuffy and oppressive as the dragon peons scurried about on their menial errands.

Felador set off, searching for a single face. He found it on the other side of the cavern, tucked into a particularly shaded corner from which its owner observed the quotidian bustle.

"Good evening, Sortolo." The dragon nodded to him.

"Felador. I presume that you have a report?"

"Yes. The plan is falling into place perfectly: The next victim is lined up already, slated to die in a few hours. The preparations are already in place."

"Good," grunted Sortolo unenthusiastically, "And what about this issue with the death of the boy?"

"Taken care of," replied Felador smoothly, "In fact, it may work to our advantage." Sortolo nodded somberly.

"You appear to have things in hand — but if I recall correctly, you have some business to attend to in setting up your next target…"

"Indeed I do," said Felador, grinning, "If you don't need anything, I'll be off." Sortolo gave him a dismissive gesture, and he turned and left, heading back down the tunnel, through the ocean of blackness, out into the faint, bloody light of the sun.

_I'll have to hurry_, he told himself: _The day is dying; it will soon be dark_.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Cynder smiled as Rose recounted again all the things that she had learnt that day; she never tired of seeing the young dragons' eyes lighting up with ardor for knowledge — and it was even more heartwarming coming from her own daughter.

Arial had always been a little too demure for that, even as a child — and besides, she had been Spyro's girl through and through.

Rose, on the other hand, was boisterous and ebullient, positively brimming with excitement. She was quite literally bouncing on her paws as she told her mother for the third time about her classes.

Arial stood by, watching with sororal patience, a somewhat detached grin on her face as she listened to her sister's prattling. Cynder, on the other hand, was genuinely beaming at her daughter's words.

She loved seeing Rose so happy: It was like spotting a singularly beautiful flower…or a saliently resplendent ray of light.

Just then, the door opened: Spyro walked in.

There was a curiously pensive expression on his face, but he erased it the moment he spotted them; Rose noted his entrance and spun around to give him her threefold rendition of the day's activities (despite the fact that he had been her teacher for the majority of them…). But first, she raced up and hugged him — or rather, his legs, since she was still too small to reach his shoulders with her wings.

"Wow," he remarked with a faintly weary grin, "That's quite the welcome."

"She's excited," Arial explained, "She hasn't stopped talking since she got back from her lessons."

"Speaking of which," continued Spyro, glancing towards the balcony, "isn't it time that you got to bed? You have more lessons tomorrow." Cynder followed his gaze: The sun was nearly fully set, hurling its last feeble rays into the room; shadows were beginning to fill the air like blankets of smoke, expanding out from the remotest corners.

"I guess," said Rose, thoroughly disappointed that she would have to defer her tales for the following day. "Good night," she said, giving her father a second hug, racing up and giving her mother one as well, and then scampering out of the room.

"Good night," chuckled Arial, following in her sister's wake.

"Night, kiddo," Spyro said to her tiredly as she passed. She left, closing the door behind her.

Silence filled the room, which Cynder thought was strange: Typically, at least the faint susurrations of the nighttime forests and swamps outside would make its way into the quietude of the chamber; but tonight, as the sun's final threads of light dissolved into shadow, the air was still and quiet as a tomb.

Spyro gave her a wan smile, traversed the room, and sat down outside on the balcony. She joined him, twining her tail around his as she opened her mouth to speak:

"So…I heard about Zetch."

"Yeah," sighed Spyro, his amethyst eyes focused on some unseen object out in the swiftly blackening forests, "I just came from talking with his parents." Her shoulder just touching his, Cynder felt him shudder slightly. "That wasn't a pleasant conversation…"

"How are they holding up?"

"As well as you could hope — losing their son like that…"

After a moment's thought, Cynder asked, "And how are _you_ holding up?" Spyro looked at her, his expression utterly inscrutable, even to her. He sighed.

"I need to tell you something," he muttered, "Come with me." He stepped aside, spread his wings, and lifted off into the night sky. Cynder, bewildered, followed.

_'I _need_ to tell you something,'_ she repeated to herself. _Not '_Can _I tell you something?'_… When Spyro said _need_…he meant it. But what could be so important that they would have to leave the Temple to discuss it?

…Was she even interpreting this right?

They had left the Temple before on miscellaneous enterprises — sometimes simply to get away from the hustle and bustle of it all, if only for a night…sometimes two. She remembered one time that they had stayed away for four days…

But this was different: This did not resemble some amatory exploit or some nightly furlough. Spyro had looked far too serious, far too drained. _Then what is this about?_

The night was waxing, expanding its umbrageous wings across the surface of the Earth: Stars were beginning to peep timidly through the black-purple cloth that was the sky; the air was tantalizing and sweet with the wet scents of the forests, just slightly piquant due to the swampy odors mixed in with them.

Despite her confusion as to what on Earth Spyro wanted to tell her, Cynder could not help but enjoy the flight: Night flying was always something that delighted her — the coolness of the air, the tranquility of it all, the sense of invulnerability, of being lost in another world…

Spyro was leading her out westward, the Temple melting away as the moon rose behind them and cast its misty blue rays ahead of them, adding a touch of otherworldliness to the nocturnal ambiance. When Spyro finally inflected his course northward, she recognized their destination:

The mountains that bordered the Enchanted Forest and the icy northern plains were composed of three or four separate spines, the exterior, eastern ones of which were low and rounded — quite unlike their lofty, jagged counterparts.

Along these low mountain ranges, rocky hills coated in fuzzy grass and quaint trees wound their way on convoluted routes along the mountainside, zigzagging up and down, producing strange folds and furrows and hollows.

Water and wind from the fierce storms that often plagued the mountains had eroded some such depressions into caves — sometimes networks of caves. It was to one such cave that Spyro was leading her now.

It was situated in a crooked ridge of rock that shaded it from external influences, and a rockslide had isolated it even more completely, giving it the air of an enisled mountain outcrop. In front of it was an almost porch-like patch of thin grass painted blue-green by the light of the moon.

They landed there, and Spyro led her into the cave.

The darkness inside was mitigated by the moon- and starlight seeping in through the cave mouth, which faced the northeast. Spyro slid into the deeper shadows at the back of the cave, paused, and turned to face her:

Half of his face was concealed in darkness, the other illumined by the spectral blue light. His eyes alone shone unoccluded, like two amethyst stars.

Cynder spoke first: "Spyro, what's going on? The last time we were here we ended up having Rose…and that expression you're wearing is nothing like the one you wore then. What's going on?" she repeated gently. Spyro simply returned her gaze for a moment; then he sighed.

"You remember this morning," he began in a slow, almost pained voice, "when Marius wanted to talk to me?"

"Yes?"

"Well…here's what he had to say." And he told her: told her about Marius's discovery of the documents implicating an assassination plot whose viability was still up in the air; about Marius's almost exorbitant emphasis on secrecy; about Zetch.

"After I left the med station," Spyro continued in a low, almost dark tone, "I started to wonder. This thing with Zetch — it doesn't feel right, something doesn't feel right, Cynder."

"You think that Zetch's death had something to do with this criminal assassination plot?" she asked him, "That sounds kind of farfetched…"

"I know," Spyro mumbled, casting his gaze out into the blue light of the moon, his violaceous eyes scintillating; his face was still half enshrouded in darkness. "But I don't like it. I've got a really bad feeling…" Cynder moved over and sat next to him, nestling against his side and twining her tail around his:

She could sense a sort of shiver running through him…but not one of cold.

"What're you gonna do?" Spyro sighed; his breath materialized as wispy fog in front of him — Cynder hadn't noticed how cold it had suddenly gotten.

"I guess that there's nothing I can do," he replied dejectedly. She gazed at him: His shoulders were tensed, his eyes anguished, his head bent sorrowfully; his wings languished at his sides, his tail was taut in hers. The distraught expression on his face belied and stood out starkly against his handsome features, his morose, vapid posture gainsaying his youthful robustness.

He looked up and caught her staring at him.

"What?" His breath tickled her face with warm fog.

"It's just," said Cynder slowly and softly, "I haven't seen you this tense – this…harrowed – since the Dark War." Spyro gave her a wan smile as if to say that he was fine: She didn't believe that for a moment. He turned to gaze out at the night sky.

"I just…" His feeble smile vanished, replaced by a dark, glazed look. "I just keep seeing that kid's face." He looked at her again. The sadness in his eyes was heartbreaking.

"I know," she whispered, "but like you said, there's really nothing you can do…" She hadn't noticed it until then, but their voices had been possessed of a steady decrescendo:

The shadows of the vernal night acted like a blanket, stifling their words and stagnating the air, despite the fact that a chilly breeze was whistling quietly past the cave mouth. Darkness was gathering like legions of wraiths in the corners of the cave, lurking outside in silent and sinister ambuscade.

Suddenly, Spyro gave a small smile — a genuine one; he stood and walked outside into the ethereal moonlight, his tail slipping out of Cynder's as he did so. The moment he departed, she felt the oppressive silence and darkness more keenly, and she was suddenly anxious.

Thankfully, Spyro reappeared quickly: Between his teeth he held a pristinely white lily spattered in red, like droplets of blood speckling snow.

"Here," he said in a muffled voice, laying the flower before her. "I saw it outside — this cave could use some domestic touches," he remarked, glancing around at the plain, tenebrous interior.

Cynder smiled: He was always giving her flowers. Spyro had some profound affinity for flowers…

He sat down next to her again, and Cynder was grateful for the warmth: The night was becoming increasingly wintry, little gusts of frost-laden air washing in upon them from outside. She nestled closer to Spyro and laid her head on his shoulder. She felt him drape his wing around her, shielding her from the wind.

"I guess we might as well stay here," he said archly, titillating her with the tip of his tail. She smiled and closed her eyes — with them shut, she could almost imagine that the cold, the darkness, the wind did not exist. She lightly touched the lily with her paw.

"I guess so…" She felt Spyro kiss her on the nose.

"Good night, Cynder — and thanks."

"Good night, Spyro," she murmured. A clap of thunder, emanating out of nowhere, sealed her words. Cynder touched a second time the lily Spyro had given her.

Rain began to fall.


	6. Ill Omens

**CHAPTER 6**

"Ill Omens"

Keo hated the northwestern sector: Nothing ever happened there, and it was always just so blasted cold!

As an officer of the Dragon Army's Division of Domestic Security, he spent his shifts patrolling various routes of the nine primary sectors of the Temple: southeast, south, southwest, west, northwest, north, northeast, east, and center. Guarding Center Sector was a sinecure, as any foul play there would have to pass through the straitlaced security of the other eight.

As the remotest – and chilliest – part of the Temple's structure, Northwest Sector constituted the most _boring_ beat to which any patroller could be assigned. Keo was a sociable _Fire_ dragon — he _hated_ isolated, wintry places.

And today wasn't a particularly appealing day: The sky was an intimidating, plumbean gray; it had been raining intermittently since the previous night; and to top it all, malicious, powerful gusts of icy wind were bombarding the Temple from all directions.

Since the winds prevailed from the north, and since the DDS in its infinite wisdom had decided to subject him to an _outdoor_ patrol route, Keo felt each keen blast of air. He grumbled to himself as he shuffled along, tucking his wings to his side to try and deflect the brunt of the tempestuous winds.

There really was little to do on these patrols: The Temple had not had any security problems since the year or two following the Dark War, when the Dragon Army had been attempting to restore a semblance of order to the realms. The Temple was a fortress — it was hardly likely that anyone would attempt to attack it. _Especially not in _this _weather_… Keo groused to himself.

On warm summer days, he did not mind the outside routes — he relished them: the feel of the sun's balmy rays on his broad shoulders and stout muzzle was indescribably pleasurable.

On days like this, however, he preferred to be teaching indoors with Spyro: Keo – who was the purple dragon's junior by a mere three years – had been his pupil from childhood — nearly from infancy, since his parents had both died shortly after he was born.

He wasn't a particularly bright student: He was certainly above average, but by no means prodigious, and he had to work hard for any excellence that came his way. He had had to work hard for _anything_ that had come his way…

For what he lacked in intelligence he made up vastly in strength: He wasn't a particularly tall or heavy dragon, but anyone who had ever met him would describe him as _big_: Slightly taller than most, he had the girth of a column of stone – and about as much resilience – with broad, solid shoulders, thick, powerful legs, and a tail that resembled a monstrous, scarlet python.

He wasn't bad looking, either — actually, he was strikingly handsome. It was not, however, dashing, cinematic good looks and a silver tongue that distinguished him (in those regards, he was really rather ordinary); rather, he exuded an aura of virility and charm that were irresistibly and inexplicably magnetic.

He was always smiling: a scintillating, almost seductive smile that displayed glinting white teeth (impossibly white for a carnivorous dragon…). Added to that were both his resplendent blue eyes that seemed to hum with an electric vitality, and his bright red scales that shone with impossible brilliance.

His entire bearing appeared to burn with power and passion, and fatigue never disgraced his body. He radiated ardor and energy: To look at him – cerulean eyes alight with incandescence; muscles rippling as though washed in warm, golden light; dazzling teeth gleaming like stars – he struck an impressive and singularly compelling figure.

But now he wore no smile; now his physique was not highlighted by tantalizing (not to mention warm) sunlight; now his gleaming teeth were firmly hidden behind an obdurate scowl.

Keo was still wondering what stroke of fate had condemned him to this prolonged exposure to the punitive winds when suddenly something caught his eye: A dragon was approaching from the northwest, flying falteringly towards the rampart on which he stood.

Keo jumped back as the dragon landed violently, crashing into the side of the Temple, finally coming to rest in a ragged heap of pallid scales. He determined that it was a dragoness of wiry, almost emaciated build that was nonetheless markedly curvaceous.

_Not bad-looking for a wreck_, he thought. He moved to help her up, but she had already bounded to her paws, chest heaving in her attempts to catch her breath. She wore that vertiginous look that Keo associated with the feeling of having one's insides sucked out.

"Can I help you, ma'am?" he asked with a small, jaunty smile. The comely stranger (he found that her belabored respiration in some charming way enhanced her pulchritude) continued to gasp, sheer physical enervation causing her to tremble on her paws.

"I — I need — I need to speak — to — Spyro — n-_now_!" she choked out. Keo cocked his head: That was a strange request.

Visitors for Spyro were hardly infrequent, but they typically came through channels: by appointment, through relegated portals, and certainly not so abruptly. There were protocols for conferring with the leader of an army. Breaches in decorum were undesirable…and suspicious.

"Do you have an appointment, ma'am?" he asked primly.

"Do I _look_ like I have an appointment?!" retorted the stranger shrilly; her forcefulness sapped what breath she had recovered. She staggered slightly; her trembling intensified. _Down, girl_, Keo thought. _You're gonna give yourself an aneurysm screaming like that_…

"No ma'am, you don't."

"I need to speak to him _right_ _now_! It's _urgent_!"

"Very well," said Keo cautiously, "If you will follow me."

He led her down the rampart to a door. They entered the Temple, and Keo conducted the stranger to the hall where he knew that Spyro would be teaching that morning.

All the while, he wondered what he would do about this dragoness: At the moment, he had to consider her a possible threat, and to that end he was walking abreast her, furtively surveying her as they progressed; at each turn, he kept his gaze riveted on her to ensure that she attempted no diabolical ruse.

She did not. The stranger remained perfectly demure as she stalked along beside her guide, and in fact she had regained a measure of professional composure now that she was not fighting for each breath.

Indeed, her demeanor was almost regal: She walked in impeccable, dainty strides; her posture was irreproachably erect; her face was set in an intimidating expression of sternness. Keo noticed that she had lovely blue eyes. _Not bad-looking_, he observed for the second time. _That is, considering how uptight she is_…_ Loosen up, lady_…

She did not: She remained rigid and dour no matter how deep and awkward the silence between them grew. _Whatever_, Keo thought indifferently. _Just hope Spyro finds you more engaging_…

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Spyro was watching his class depart when they walked in: Keo and Natalia, King Parcel's new aide-de-camp. (The first one – the one Spyro had originally met, Kamelia – had been killed in the Dark War.) They spotted him and approached.

"Spyro," said Keo stiffly, "This estimable dragoness requests an audience with you." He eyed her somewhat suspiciously.

"Sir," saluted Natalia courteously, "I must confess that I am appalled by the egregiously uncivil nature of your subordinates." She flashed Keo a venomous look. Spyro chuckled.

"Keo was just doing his job — he didn't know who you were." He turned to the Fire dragon. "Keo, this is Natalia — King Parcel's personal secretary." Keo nodded in understanding, though he hardly looked apologetic: Rather, he gazed at Natalia with a slightly piqued expression, as though studying some curious piece of artwork.

"We need to speak, my friend," Natalia continued, completely ignoring Keo, "It is a particularly exigent matter." Spyro felt a glimmer of anxiety: He had known Natalia long enough to know that anything she called _particularly exigent_ was exactly that. Moreover, she would _never_ have addressed him (technically her superior) by the familiar greeting of _my friend_ unless she had been in trouble.

"Of course," he answered. "Keo," he added to the officer, "I have another class coming in — would you take over while I consult with Natalia?" The strapping youth's eyes kindled excitedly.

"You bet!" He turned around and whisked to the door to meet his temporary pupils. Spyro led Natalia through an adjacent room and out onto a shaded walkway.

It was one of the many viaducts that weaved their way between and interlinked the Temple's various discrete structures. They were bordered by corrugated parapets and supported below by spidery beams of stone and above by thick, heavy cables that anchored them to the walls of the Temple.

Because of all of the tall walls around them, the viaducts were sheltered from the wind, and often from rain as well. They were cross-linked to one another at multiple junctions, so that one could practically travel to any point in the Temple by following their routes. They were the perfect place to carry on a private conversation.

"Don't mind Keo," Spyro advised Natalia with a sympathetic smile the moment that they stepped out into the cold air. "He's not the most refined of dragons… Plus," he added jovially, "I think he was flirting with you a little." Natalia gave him a look of complete and utter disdain.

"How positively repulsive," she said evenly. Spyro laughed.

"Still, he's a good dragon — I've known him for years and years. Believe me, somewhere in all that pomp and musculature is a heart of gold."

"My relief is inexpressible." Spyro laughed again.

"But more seriously — what was this urgent matter you wanted to talk to me about?" Natalia's contempt was replaced with anguish: He thought he saw tears come to her azure eyes.

"Spyro, I am afraid that I have horrible news." She stopped, as though the weight of it were too great for her to move until she had unburdened herself. Spyro paused as well, steeling himself for what he had a dire suspicion was going to be a great shock…

"King Parcel is dead."

Spyro's heart skipped a beat. _What did she say?_ It couldn't be true — could it? Parcel…dead? It couldn't be possible, it was not possible.

He had known Parcel for years, and he had been the quintessential consummate survivor: He had weathered every storm, had endured every trial, had surmounted every obstacle, had conquered every foe. That Parcel the unyielding could have died, could have been vanquished, finally defeated — that was unthinkable.

Besides that…he had been Spyro's friend.

To be sure, they had not always gotten along very well, and truth be told Spyro had never actually held much affection towards the surly monarch…but he had been a compatriot in their mutual struggle during the Dark War, and he had been by his side in the seemingly insuperable endeavor to rebuild the world afterward.

Parcel had been relentless in his devotion to his kingdom and to peace, and the news of such an iconic figurehead having died…it was a blow. Moreover, Spyro did not have the faintest idea what would become of the crown: Parcel had never had any children, and Juzgara had always been ruled by a dynasty — it went back hundreds of years. Who would – who _could_ – succeed Parcel as king?

"That's not all," continued Natalia tearfully, "I am afraid — I am afraid that he was murdered."

Spyro felt an icy chill steel over his heart: Parcel dead was one thing; Parcel murdered…that was quite another.

It was then that he recalled the ominous forebodings that he had felt at Zetch's death. Any incertitude he had harbored regarding of their reality instantly dissolved: It had been washed away by Parcel's blood.

In that instant, Spyro knew – he _knew_, in that indescribable yet indubitable way that characterized things of the heart – that the assassin was real: real and active.

"Spyro?" Natalia sounded fearful, as though she suspected that Spyro had been psychologically wounded by the ghastly revelation.

"How did it happen?" he asked in a sober, monotonous voice.

"An explosion — you see, there was this strange dragon who had requested an audience with him and who had then proceeded to babble some drivel about you and Javert and Croiseau – during the Dark War, you know – and Parcel kicked him out; however, he shortly decided to detain the dragon, but when I went out to order the guards to incarcerate him — he was gone!

"We sent out search parties, but the stranger was never found. Parcel was consulting with one such party near the armory when..." Natalia's voice faded as she restrained, with enormous effort, a sob. "…when a munitions crate suddenly exploded right next to them. Parcel – along with three of the four other dragons – was killed." Spyro felt an urge to vomit. He had seen too many bodies torn to pieces by explosives to not imagine Parcel's form splintered into bloody fragments —

_Stop! Focus!_

"You said 'murdered,'" he noted, still in that same flat voice, as though he too were restraining tears.

"Yes, well…when we investigated…we found that the detonation had been triggered by a chemical agent. Someone sprinkled what we have determined to be ferrous picrate all over the contents of the crate and then detonated it by dropping a second crate on top of it… It was actually lucky that only a few munitions crates were there: The presence of many more could have caused an explosion of catastrophic proportions." Hearing the details made the truth of it no easier: Parcel was dead.

_Ferrous picrate?_ Spyro knew enough chemistry to know that metallic salts of picric acid were highly explosive — they constituted a major ingredient in many of the munitions that the Dragon Army itself used. The Juzgaran Royal Army used the same compound in its own explosives.

Anyone could have extracted some of the powder and then sprinkle it into the crate, and the compound would have been unstable enough that even the shock of a second crate falling on top of the first could have triggered a detonation —

_Wait a moment_, Spyro suddenly thought. _Armorers don't store picric acid in iron containers — it's too hazardous. They use plastic_. That meant that the iron had been _added_…that whoever had assassinated Parcel had a working knowledge of chemistry (or had an accomplice who did) — enough to manufacture an unstable explosive without killing himself.

That was hardly good news. It was a risky move to assassinate someone so theatrically (the chemical hazards notwithstanding), and only the cleverest – and most diabolical – killers ever attempted it.

"Do you have any suspects?" Spyro asked, feeling truly sick to his stomach.

"I'm afraid not," answered Natalia sadly, "We _did_ apprehend the dragon who pushed the second crate — but he is nothing but an underling, a patsy: I seriously doubt that he is the assassin we want. The Royal Guard is interrogating him now."

"What about the throne? Who's going to take Parcel's place?"

"We don't know," replied Natalia miserably, "General Barzva is standing in as regent, but…well, you met him, Spyro: He's a brilliant soldier…but he would be an absolutely lousy king." Spyro nodded. Barzva was another dragon with whom he had not gotten along well. Nevertheless, he held him in the highest respect: He was devoted to his king and to his country. He would more than suffice _pro tempore_.

"I realize that this is immensely upsetting, Natalia," Spyro murmured gently, "but I don't understand why you came _here_: What can _we_ do?" Natalia cast him a truly horrified expression: Her façade of reticent professionalism shattered. Two tears rolled down her face.

"Spyro…that stranger who came in babbling about you, the one who started all of this…he — he said something about you. I thought nothing of it at the time – I thought he was just some babbling maniac! – but he said that 'blood was still demanded' for Croiseau's death…your blood!" Spyro blinked.

What was _that_ supposed to mean? Javert had killed Croiseau…not Spyro. Apparently, Natalia noticed his incomprehension:

"He said that…since you didn't save Croiseau from Javert…you were equally culpable for his death. It just gave me a nasty feeling, so I came here…" Spyro's heart fell: A sinister feeling rose in his heart, a knowledge at once sobering, terrifying, and steadying.

This assassin was not simply targeting him: He was _torturing _him. He was seeking to effect atrocities that would steadily pulverize his resolve, extracting every exquisite ounce of agony until the final blow was struck. Zetch, Parcel — they were but the first of what promised to be many victims.

_But _why_? Who is it that I've ticked off enough to do this?!_ He was still confused and uneasy, but at least now he saw the motivation of these crimes. Perhaps, armed with that knowledge, he could prevent further deaths. _Who's next?_

"There's one more thing, Spyro," said Natalia softly, suddenly very grave. He met her eyes: They were dark and concerned. "I don't know what this means," she said, reaching into a pouch that she had strapped around her shoulder, "but when we were investigating the crime scene…we found it lying in a corner in the open…like we were _meant_ to find it." She pulled out the mysterious article and showed it to him.

Spyro's heart stopped entirely: It was a lily…pure white and speckled with blood-red — exactly like the one he had given Cynder the night before.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Scabré was confused…highly, highly confused. He had arrived in Juzgara at daybreak, figuring that he would avoid the matutinal bustle of police work, but the headquarters was absolutely swarming: Officers racing left and right, papers shuffling, people jabbering, badges flashing as their wearers whizzed past, eyes darting, faces grim and stupefied.

He had not had the faintest idea what was going on until he had managed to wrangle a passing clerical employee, whom he interrogated as to the cause of the pandemonium. The clerk had given him an utterly flabbergasted look…and then told him the reason:

King Parcel was dead.

_That_ had been a shock — and it had dashed his hopes of speaking with an officer concerning murderer that he was pursuing: They were all just too busy…not to mention stressed.

It didn't really matter, though: The death of the Juzgaran king, while tragic and completely unexpected, had little bearing on Scabré's investigation, so he put the matter out of his mind.

On the other hand, this was most interesting: His underground contacts back in Vunoire had confirmed that some stranger had appeared in the local underworld, strutting around before the crime lords like a cock before hens.

What was strange was that the chiefs _let _him act so pretentiously: They cowered in his wake like trembling leaves quaking before a chilly breeze. The more Scabré heard, the more convinced he became that this newcomer was not really new: He was behind several of the criminal gangs, evidently superior to their bosses.

Perhaps he was the leader of a gang himself? More likely a syndicate — he wielded too much authority and prestige in the underworld to be a simple gang lord. But if he headed a syndicate, where was it? There were no indications of such an organization in Vunoire.

_There never are_, Scabré told himself dryly. _There never are_…

Either way, he had confirmed that the mysterious person who had visited Sinmaclée was likely the same villain whom he had pursued in the streets yesterday — indeed, for the past few months! He had also confirmed that the devil had likely come here to Juzgara, as there was no sign of him in the Vunoire underground.

Scabré had been hoping that he would detect signs of the killer _here_, by perhaps conferring with the local police — but that plan was shot. It wasn't likely he needed their help, however: It seemed obvious to him that his killer was here. King Parcel – who had endured more than his fair share of assassination plots over the years – was murdered the day after Scabré concluded that his target had come to the capital? That was too big of a coincidence for Scabré to believe.

The question now was what to do: With Parcel dead, the assassin's job in Juzgara was likely done, and, considering that the job had been foisted onto a patsy (as he had learnt from a second passing officer) and had been executed the night before, it seemed impossible that the killer was still in the city.

Scabré had not the foggiest clue where to look for him: His trail had ended at Juzgara. Perhaps some details of the king's murder could conduct him to the culprit? It was not likely that the Juzgaran government would allow such a thing: They were covering up the assassination, refusing to dispatch any sort of communiqué to the people (which was why it was odd and highly inappropriate that that one officer had told him of the details of the murder…).

That struck Scabré as underhanded…but it was irrelevant. He needed to find that killer. But the more he thought about it, the more puzzled he became: What was the _point_? Why kill Parcel? Maren at least had been fighting for sociopolitical progress — reforms that the criminal underbelly of Vunoire would hardly desire to see actuated. Yet this assassin had quite purposefully crossed over to Juzgara and killed its king.

That told Scabré two things: Firstly, this killer was more cunning and more devious than he had thought — to kill a king so easily was no trivial accomplishment. Secondly, the killer's plans extended beyond the scope of Vunoire. He appeared to be inciting chaos across the breadth of the Northern Isles —

_There's a thought: Is he headed to Frolichthon?_ If the killer was indeed traversing the Northern Isles, then it seemed logical that he should next strike in the kingdom east of Juzgara —

No…that didn't make sense. All of the criminal's connections appeared to be in Vunoire. _So why attack _here_?_

Scabré paused: Juzgara and Vunoire had always been infamous for a notorious smuggling ring. Purportedly, it had been dismantled during the first years of the War of Malefor, but criminal organizations were like cancers: Maybe they went away…often they didn't; they could reemerge decades after they had been supposedly quashed.

Perhaps – just perhaps – _that_ was the connection that he sought.

_That should be easy enough to determine_. Smuggling rings were, in theory, fairly easy to infiltrate: They were peopled by the lowliest, most venal scum; they would sell out their own families for a single day's binge. Such people were easily manipulated (albeit somewhat erratic and unreliable), and they provided occasional nuggets of solid, premium information, which over time accumulated into hordes of treasure of unimaginable worth: They could lead to the subversion of a major – and certainly steadier – player in the ring, which in turn could lead to a superior…then another…and another — until eventually the entire hierarchy was toppled and the syndicate dissolved.

To avoid such deterioration, smugglers tended to recycle their lower members and tightly retain their core officers; like a planet taking up and then depositing asteroids, they would burn through menial employees, leaving few openings through which the law could infiltrate, while continually pulling their central "family" closer and closer.

Such a process was laborious and hardly flawless: Errors were committed consistently, and the law eventually seized a foothold. It was part of the reason that smugglers often bought off members of the judicial system (which in Vunoire was not hard at all).

The extensive anarchy of Vunoire and the straitlaced legalism of Juzgara had fostered a highly profitable relationship between the two nations' illicit organizations, which for decades had been profiteering relatively unhindered. The kingdoms had only recently begun to jointly assail the criminals' strongholds.

It was the perfect answer: A smuggling ring would supply the assassin with access, resources, anonymity, and prestige (smugglers were often revered in the criminal underworld), _and_ it would give him connections to criminal organizations beyond the Northern Isles.

That is what Scabré would do: He would return to Vunoire, and he would resurrect every smuggling contact he had ever made; he would enlist the help of the entire police force and every turncoat criminal in the kingdom! He _would_ apprehend this monster!

_I'll get you_, Scabré vowed a second time, an audible growl nearly escaping his throat. _Wherever you may hide — I will be there!_

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"You said this was urgent, Captain?" Spyro asked somewhat testily as Marius led him along a viaduct at the eastern end of the Temple. The intelligence officer had encountered him just after Natalia had returned to Juzgara: It turned out that he had already known of Parcel's assassination. (All else notwithstanding, Spyro had to admire the efficiency of the transnational intelligence network.)

"Not urgent _per se_, sir — important, yes…"

"Well, what's so important?"

"I have some information on this criminal syndicate. After initial investigations came up empty-handed, we embarked upon a more aggressive approach."

"Aggressive how?"

"I have an undercover agent inside the syndicate as we speak. He is working his way up the ranks – that will likely take time – but he has managed to glean a few bits of prime intelligence.

"Firstly, we now know the name of this collusive organization: the Raven's Wing. Secondly, we are certain that they are based somewhere in the northern Enchanted Forest. Thirdly, we have confirmed ties to criminal organs – perhaps subordinate to the Raven's Wing – in both Juzgara and Vunoire.

"Fourthly, the syndicate is far older than we anticipated: According to current intimations, its origin dates back to the War of Malefor."

"I thought Malefor had purged all of those criminal groups when he took power," Spyro muttered. It had been one of the Dark Master's first tyrannical acts: eradicating all of the potential sources of systematic subversion to his forcibly usurped authority.

"Evidently not — or at least, this one may have temporarily splintered and gone underground…more so, anyway."

"So what's our plan for tackling this assassination issue?" Spyro was eager to hear the proposal: The sooner they took action, the likelier it was that they could avert further deaths. Marius gave him a deflating look.

"I'm afraid that we do not have one yet — our man is too new to do anything but feed us bits of miscellaneous information, and the assassin we are looking for is likely a high-profile figure. Those kinds of secrets take time to procure."

"Well, what _can_ we do?" asked Spyro, his impatience returning. This was shaping up to be a very lousy day. The weather didn't help: In addition to the cold wind, a miserable drizzle of rain had begun to fall.

"Until we know more, simply watch and wait — and continue to dig around."

"Perfect," grumbled Spyro. "Sorry, Captain," he added penitently, "This just isn't doing much for my stress level."

"I understand, sir," replied Marius with unflappable sympathy. He waited a moment; then: "With your permission, sir, I would like to visit Juzgara to determine what they may know about this…and perhaps look into possible outlets of the Raven's Wing."

"If you think that's wise, do it," consented Spyro somewhat absently. At this point, he was simply surrendering everything to the captain's judgment. "By the way, have you apprised Lieutenant Colonel Cognova of all of this yet?"

"No sir," replied Marius somewhat uneasily, "I…I would like to have more information about this plot before I take it into official channels."

"Okay, whatever you think's best." Marius took his approval and departed, leaving him standing there on the viaduct, alone in the wintry wind and thin rain.

Spyro sighed: He couldn't shake a nasty feeling that this was not going to end well. _Something is _very _wrong_…

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Munitions Forge was a truly horrible place: A rocky island with not an iota of green, dominated by a monstrous, unstable, active volcano, Boyzitbig, it was perhaps the most inhospitable place imaginable: It was unendingly enshrouded in smoke and sultry vapors, with effulgent rivers of lava that swirled and eddied and pooled into vast lakes of liquid fire that hurled sparks into the thick, dark sky.

Even on the brightest summer days, no sunlight could pierce the inviolable cloud of smoke, ash, dust, and detritus that Boyzitbig daily spumed; not a ray could penetrate its daunting profundity. The island was therefore constantly draped in sinister shadows, the only light coming from the lambent glow of the ubiquitous lava. When Boyzitbig erupted, it deluged the island in searing red light and heat, and the shadows fled before the raging fire, darkness replaced by wrathful light, ghostliness displaced by unimaginable unearthliness.

Boyzitbig's eruptions were fierce and erratic; the only denizens of the island were those who had developed defense mechanisms against the volcano's ireful blows: The Manweersmalls, a race of mole-like creatures who sustained themselves on bugs (which were strangely plentiful on the island), passed their time crafting things out of the abundant ores that riddled the island's vast underground network, where they also lived and took shelter during the eruptions.

It was the ore that had always brought outsiders to the island: Either honest merchants seeking trade or horrid profiteers seeking to extort wealth from the helpless natives, visitors to Munitions Forge almost invariably came because of the metals buried like hidden treasure in the island's underbelly. It was what had earned the island its name.

Of course, the "forge" aspect of its appellation had come later, when nations during wartime realized that the island formed a practically unassailable stronghold from which to manufacture and export munitions. Various forges had been constructed and abandoned until the island was left littered with remnants of past interlopers, most salient amongst whom had been Malefor's apes:

They had oppressed the Manweersmalls and subjected them to servitude, forcing them to live aboveground and to mine and forge their precious ores into deadly weapons of war. Thankfully, the operation had been ephemeral and had evanesced shortly after its conception, but the Manweersmalls nevertheless harbored ill feelings towards apes — or towards any visitors for that matter: They had been exploited by too many.

That was why the arrival of the stranger was so upsetting: He was a dragon, who, despite the unbearable, scorching heat, insisted on wearing a sort of cloak that concealed his features, leaving only his eyes, turned a ruddy bromic color in the dim firelight, exposed.

He glided across the craggy earth, evidently unperturbed by the temperature and choking fumes; he was making his way along a narrow trail that wound along a serpentine route up the side of a precipitous mountain overlooking the dark, brackish sea.

The Manweersmalls had been eyeing his approach ever since they had first espied him landing on the southwestern shores of the island: They had traced his progress towards their dens near the top of the mountain, muttering amongst themselves, fretting over whether they were about to be yet again subjected to servile tortures…

But the stranger appeared utterly alone: When the ape armies had arrived, they had been exactly that: _armies_. This dragon was completely unaccompanied. What could it mean? Was he a friend? Was he perhaps from the Dragon Temple? The only dragon from the Temple who ever visited them was Spyro, and he would not be wearing a cloak…

The stranger continued his steady trek up the mountainside, finally debouching into a clearing where the rocks formed a seclusive perimeter, rising up like the jagged teeth of some monster's maw; on the north side of the clearing (the side opposite the sea) the mountain was dotted with little caves interspersed at varying heights, those of different heights attained by very narrow, zigzagging ledges. Miscellaneous tools and belongings presented themselves to the stranger's scrutiny as he surveyed the area. Evidently uninterested by what he had seen, he ambled to the center of the clearing.

After a moment of tense silence and inactivity, a single Manweersmall stepped out of a cave and approached the stranger: He was stocky and aged, and he leaned heavily upon a little staff, giving him an awkward, lurching gait. He wore a cantankerous, irritable expression, like some decrepit elder of some arcane tribe from the depths of some mysterious jungle. He paused a few feet from the dragon and fixed his glittering eyes upon him.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded of the stranger in a surly voice slurred with age. The dragon gazed down upon the Manweersmall – the tip of whose rather large hat barely reached his knee – and replied loftily:

"I am here to make a reasonable request of you…_quaint_ denizens." The Manweersmall scoffed, as though detecting the superciliousness behind the dragon's statement.

"More likely you are here to rob us," he snorted quite forwardly. A few Manweersmalls who had crawled out of the caves nodded in far more timid agreement. The dragon smiled venomously.

"I do not think that such forceful methods will be necessary," he replied in a silken tone. "Not once you hear my proposition."

"And what might that be?" asked the Manweersmall coldly.

"A simple, mutually beneficial business arrangement." Several Manweersmalls, deciding that, since no immediate danger had presented itself, the dragon must have been benign, began to approach the stranger with apprehensive, childlike steps, like curious pups investigating some unknown object that had mysteriously appeared in their backyard.

"Business arrangement?" repeated the Manweersmall suspiciously, narrowing his beady eyes, "No one does _business_ with the Manweersmalls…they _oppress_ them…" A murmur of agreement rippled through the Manweersmall ranks. Several of them had appeared now.

"I do not think that that will be necessary," the stranger repeated.

"What do you want?" demanded the Manweersmall leader, now openly hostile. The stranger's face split into an evil grin.

"I want…ore — or rather, what you make with ore: armor, weapons, munitions in general. This _is_ Munitions Forge, after all…"

"And why precisely should we hand over this ore?"

"Because…should you refuse, I would become most…upset…"

"And why," sneered the Manweersmall, "should that concern me?"

Suddenly, the stranger moved: In a flash, his tail-blade had sliced through the throat of a Manweersmall who had gotten fatally too close. Blood stained the hot stone, hissing as it began to pool around the body. The other Manweersmalls leaped back in fright and horror, and their leader gave a snarl of fury.

"I would not do that if I were you," cautioned the stranger in a dangerous voice, as the Manweersmall began to move forward.

"How _dare_ you come — ?!"

"Let me make this clear," interrupted the dragon, "I want that ore. As long as you and your mole people supply me with the ore and munitions I desire…we will have no problem with one another."

"And if I should refuse?" The Manweersmall's voice was low; the other Manweersmalls scurried away to remote corners, cowering before the confrontation. The only sound, other than the distant rumbling of Boyzitbig, was the sizzling of the dead Manweersmall's blood as it oozed along. The dragon smiled.

"Very well, have things your way. But mark my words," he added direly, "you will rue your decision most painfully…" With that, the stranger turned and walked away, heading back down the mountain trail whence he had come.

A particularly lanky Manweersmall approached his leader; in a timid voice he asked, "Exhumor? What are we going to do?" Exhumor, the leader of the Manweersmalls, thought for a moment. Then he sighed.

"I am afraid," he said gravely, "that we will have to hide from this dragon — we cannot give him our ores."

"What if he finds us?" piped up a Manweersmall who was hiding behind a scattering of rocks. Exhumor cast his weary eyes upon him.

"Then it will be a dark day for the Manweersmalls." With that portent, he glanced towards Boyzitbig: The volcano was emitting a pulsating, grumbling noise…a noise that they all knew to be the herald of an eruption.

_An ill omen_, thought Exhumor. _An ill omen indeed_…


	7. The Call of the Raven

**CHAPTER 7**

"The Call of the Raven"

The following morning was drearier than its predecessor: The sheet of plumbean clouds had given way to a violent sea of deepest gray, the feeble drizzle to a steady curtain of argent water. The wind had intensified, sending ripples through the forests and causing the infant flowers of the Temple to shudder before its malicious gusts.

At least it was warmer: The invading spring had finally won its battle with the incumbent winter. The temperature was high enough that the wind was not sending icy chills down Cynder's spine.

Not that that made up for the otherwise melancholic weather…or for Cynder's own forebodings.

She had tried to remain positive for Spyro two nights ago, but his worries, infectious as they always were for her, had seeped into her heart and festered, and now they were rising to the surface.

Things were truly beginning to look ominous: Two nights ago, Spyro's adducible evidence consisted of nothing more than the adventitious death of a boy in close proximity to their son. Now he could cite that, the mysterious assassination of King Parcel (which Regent Barzva was still secreting), and the frustratingly unrevealing data thus far gleaned by Marius's investigations.

Cynder shivered: The winds were whistling direly past the balcony outside her dormitory; she turned her gaze up to the ashen sky, squinting against the steady, thin rain. _What is going on?_ That had become a recurrent question in the back of her mind.

She felt fear creeping up inside of her — not fear for herself though: for Spyro.

She had always feared for him, even all those years ago when they were fighting Malefor. She remembered one night back in the Enchanted Forest…

Shortly after they had been freed from the crystal that had saved their lives from the explosive collapse of the Well of Souls, Cynder, Spyro, and Sparx had been led by Hunter into the Enchanted Forest.

It had been an eerie, otherworldly, almost nostalgic feeling: It had felt as if they were coming home to some place that they had once known but long since forgotten; a place that, in its paradoxical combination of idyllic beauty and latent danger, blurred the lines of reality (even time itself seemed like some distant, inapplicable concept); a place that had appeared synesthetic, with smells becoming visible and colors audible and sights tactile; a place that seemed not surreal but _un_real, as though reality were but a game in the hands of some unknown perpetrator, responsible for all of their grief…

Fear had been the only constant: a deep-seated, unfamiliar fear of some unknowable horror, a fear that stalked the darkest corners of the heart yet never arose to the cognizant, assailable level of the mind: It lurked in the shadows, never revealing itself to attack, like some sinister predator.

It had been for that reason that Cynder had so shunned the night…the reason that she hated it still: In the light, evil remained an amorphous, nigh invisible foe; in the dark, evil took on its_ true_ form. It was darkness, strangely, not the light, that revealed the realities of evil. Light reduced evil to a quavering, impotent object of disdain. Darkness demonstrated evil as a fearsome, powerful paragon of savagery.

Sometimes, one had to step out of the light and pierce the darkness to see clearly.

Cynder had not wanted to do that — she had spent her entire life immersed in that darkness, and she had not wanted to return. In the illusory Enchanted Forest, it was easy to pretend that that darkness was, as everything else seemed to be, a figment of the imagination.

It was not so with fear: Fear remained the single, indefatigable, lurking reality. At night, it drew strength from the enveloping darkness and revealed itself.

The second night in the Enchanted Forest, Cynder had been more tortured, more anguished, than she had ever been before. Fear had overwhelmed her, fear practically of everything: fear of death, fear of loss, fear of being swallowed whole by that strange, hellish unreality of the Enchanted Forest.

Most of all, she had feared for Spyro. For herself she had cared not a whit — her fear for her own life was purely instinctual (she was more afraid of succumbing anew to Malefor's spell…); but she had always quaked before the prospect that somehow her actions, her liberating the Dark Master, would bring about Spyro's death…or worse.

She had spent that entire night watching over him as he slept, as though death were some winged creature that she could swat away if she only remained vigilant.

Cynder was cured of that childish absurdity now: She had no illusions about the ineluctability, the fatefulness of death…and that selfsame fear was arising within her now. With no illusions about averting it, death became a very imminent, very stark reality, and that served merely to intensify her fear.

To be sure, Spyro could take care of himself: He _was_, after all, the legendary purple dragon. Despite his youth and his meekness, Spyro possessed power beyond anything that Cynder had ever seen, and a mere assassin – if he were to reveal himself outright – would pose little threat to him.

But assassins never worked that way: By definition they were silent, clever warriors, shades who came and went under cover of darkness. They were an exclusive coterie of killers, inscrutable and impenetrable.

The Dragon Army had several assassins under its employ, but even they operated under certain regulations: This syndicate killer was completely unleashed, unrestricted, unregulated. The one thing more dangerous than an assassin was an unrestrained assassin.

And that truth only intensified Cynder's fear still more. They had to find this killer (now that they knew that he was real)…_fast_.

A boom of thunder coincided with this thought as it flashed like lightning through her mind. _We have _got_ to hurry. Time is running out._

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Hunter peered at the impression in the mud before him: It was the footprint of a dragon. Somehow, the rain had not yet washed it away — this section of the Enchanted Forest, near the mountains surrounding the Valley of Avalar, was densely canopied and shielded by the mountains themselves, insulated against rain and wind.

Thus, the air was heavy, wet, and still, as though all of the moisture of the storm that had passed a few hours previously had simply tumbled down the mountainside in a feeble slide. The trees' broad, crisp leaves – fresh and new from the retreating winter – brimmed with shining dew, and those fecund smells that pervaded a wet, springtime forest were indeed wafting their steady, lackadaisical way through the air.

Hunter, however, was oblivious to the refreshing quaintness of the forest morning: He was puzzled. This footprint…it should not be there.

Dragons had decamped from the Enchanted Forest years before — it simply wasn't their environment. There had been few émigrés at all, so finding a dragon _now_ in the forest – outside of a military situation – was exceedingly rare.

Of course, there were the intelligence officers that the Dragon Army had disseminated throughout the woods: They would wander the landscape secretively, masking their presence — indeed, they often were indiscernible, even to the practiced eyes of the Avalarans.

This footprint, however, did not belong to an intelligence officer — of that, Hunter was sure: No intelligence officer would venture into Avalar (there was no need, as the Avalarans themselves could defend the valley — besides, the anthropomorphic, feline creatures were highly territorial…), and even if they did, they would not be so sloppy as to leave behind such a blatant trail.

"Well, Hunter?" asked Dmitri, the leader of their group of three, "What do you make of it?" Dmitri was a husky, broad-shouldered Avalaran with dull gray fur and serpentine green eyes. He was the Chieftain of the Avalarans — ever since Prowlus had been killed in the Dark War…

"I do not like the odds," Hunter replied, "There should be no dragons around here…"

"Perhaps it is they who have been ravaging the herb patches," suggested Ivanova darkly. The Avalarans harvested various herbs and fruits from plants the length and breadth of the valley; rather than legitimately farming these materials, they simply foraged them. They had, as a race, a penchant for a sort of readily mobile lifestyle — being ever ready to pack up and move out, like an army temporarily encamped.

"Perhaps…"

"Whatever their activities," said Dmitri, "we must discern their _identities_. Too many disturbances have been plaguing these woods recently."

"And when we find them, we will take them out, yes?" asked Ivanova with a rather cold, emotionless look on her face. Hunter could not help smile to himself: Ivanova, who had, during the Dark War, been employed by the Dragon Army as an assassin, had never lost the sense of systematic target elimination that was a principle element of her former profession. Hunter had actually been surprised when Dmitri had asked _him_ to examine the footprint rather than Ivanova.

"Perhaps," answered Dmitri vaguely, "Perhaps…" Dmitri was a stickler for caution — it was why he had been elected the new chieftain. "Whither are they headed, Hunter?"

"North."

"Then let's get going." They set off, darting through the trees towards the mountains bounding the valley; they moved with a silent rapidity that the most limber jackrabbit would espy with envy, swaddled in their cloaks such that the latter would not flutter haphazardly and snag on a passing branch or produce noise that would betray their presence.

The three Avalaran warriors made their way into the base of the mountain, their pace abated only slightly by the worsening terrain. Hunter led the group, following the faint scent trail left by the footprint. The mountains had broken the majority of the storm front from the previous few days, so there was just enough of a hint of it for him to discern.

They came to a little ridge that wrapped around the western side of a sort of clearing, which it overlooked; the Avalarans raced noiselessly up the ridge, pausing behind a few large boulders that occulted them from the sight of anyone who happened to be in the clearing.

_Anyone_ was, in fact, a group of five apes: They were clad in smudged black armor that looked more than worse for wear, wore leathery baldrics from which were suspended shabby-looking broadswords, and sat in a tight circle around a feeble fire. They appeared to be trying to warm themselves, despite the fact that it was not a particularly cold morning.

"Interesting," mused Dmitri, his glittering eyes narrowing as he surveyed the scene, "Any hypotheses as to why _they_ are here?"

"There are marauders all over the forest," noted Ivanova slowly, "but none have ever ventured this close — not since the Dark War ended."

"Most interesting," repeated Dmitri, still staring at the intruders. Hunter, for his part, slid his bow off of his shoulder and fitted a plumed arrow to the string.

He was very proud of this bow: Carved of pale willow, ornately engraved with spiraling patterns that resembled tongues of flame, it sported a string of wolf muscle dyed with herbs so that it shone silver; it slid comfortably into his hand with a warm feeling like the greeting of an old friend, and the pressure of the arrow against the string felt as natural to him as breathing.

Hunter, of all of the Avalarans, was the most skillful in archery — only Ivanova could come close to rivaling, and even she only barely: Most of the Avalarans carried light glaives made of a wood reminiscent of bamboo as their primary weapons, and Hunter, too, had one such weapon slung across his back; but, in a combat situation, he would reach first for his bow.

He had handcrafted each individual arrow in its attendant quiver, also slung across his back; the arrows were meticulously carved of a dense wood burnished to an impressive luster, elegantly plumed with glossy falcon feathers, and masterfully tipped with smelted bronze and fashioned to a wickedly sharp point.

The quiver itself was divided into quadrants, separating single-tipped arrows from double- and triple-tipped ones, and from a type of corkscrew arrow that he was just beginning to experiment with.

Hunter took great pride in the craftsmanship of these matériel…and he hated to waste arrows: When he let one fly, it rarely missed its mark.

The arrow he had drawn, however, lay dormant in the bowstring, aimed harmlessly at the ground until Dmitri gave him an order.

"Well, we are not going to discover anything just sitting here," remarked Ivanova, looking at Dmitri expectantly.

"Agreed," replied the stern Avalaran, "All right: Ivanova, move in on the left, take those two sitting by that oddly-shaped rock – you see it, yes? – and Hunter, use your arrows — take those two there, closest to the fire." Hunter scanned the group of apes, searching for the ones that Dmitri was indicating: They were crouching very close to the fire, their hands shivering (despite being a good fifteen meters away, Hunter could discern traces of frostbite on the trembling digits).

"Understood," he replied. Ivanova simply nodded.

"I," continued Dmitri, "am going to capture that big one — judging from his appearance, he is the leader of this pitiful assortment." Hunter nodded: The big ape was standing the farthest from the fire, on the eastern side of the clearing, facing towards the swiftly ascending sun, which had just recently fully surmounted the peaks of the mountains.

The apes, having previously been part of a formal military outfit, were wearing epaulettes that sorted them into ranks, but these had apparently long since been faded to the point of illegibility by both the elements and time. This ape was distinguished as the leader presumably by his generally more savage demeanor — and, of course, his larger and more brutish appearance.

Hunter raised his bow and aimed his first arrow carefully as the other two whisked off. He sighted the bronze tip, gauged the direction and impetus of the wind, adjusted his aim, and waited.

He could see, out of the corner of his eye, Ivanova approaching the two apes whose backs were turned to her. That was a mistake: She raced up and, with the dual-bladed glaive that had become her signature, swiftly decapitated both of them.

Blood eructing in a pungent geyser, the two apes whose deaths had been relegated to Hunter barely had the chance to look up before he discharged his arrow: The bronze-tipped shaft buried itself, precisely where he had aimed it, into the first ape's neck, at such an angle that it transected the carotid artery and the trachea, effectively rendering death ineluctable.

A small spurt of blood from the wound had yet to splatter on the ground before Hunter had drawn and aimed his second arrow, whose intended victim had leapt up at the death of his three comrades. He let the arrow fly, and the ape dropped where he stood, sword still sheathed, the arrow lodged squarely in his left eye.

Ivanova, by this point, was advancing on the fifth ape, who had drawn his sword and was backing away, glancing around furiously as though seeking either an exit or the cause of the arrows that had slain two of his subordinates.

Hunter decided to humor him: He drew a third arrow, fitted it to the bowstring, and leaped down from the ridge into the clearing, exposing himself; he aimed the arrow with dramatic precision at the ape's heart (even though that vital organ was protected by a breastplate).

"You beasts!" snarled the ape, his beady eyes still darting about frenziedly; apparently he sought an exit.

"Look who is calling whom _beasts_!" hissed Ivanova, genuinely reproachful. Hunter said nothing — it did not matter: Exactly at that moment, the ape backed into Dmitri.

The Avalaran Chieftain seized the ape's sword hand and twisted it artfully, forcing the muscles to unclench and the ape to drop his blade; meanwhile, Dmitri's left hand traversed right and caught the ape's neck in the crook of his elbow as his right hand took the ape's and pinioned it behind his back.

The entire move had taken perhaps five seconds.

"Release me!" spat the ape, though his eyes betrayed a fatigued sort of fear. Hunter found that odd: Apes rarely batted an eye (except in anger) at being captured. Apparently, Dmitri had not particularly noticed:

"I am afraid that I cannot do that. You are encroaching on Avalaran territory, and you must pay the penalty for your infraction."

"Please, release me!" _Now_ Dmitri took pause, and Hunter's own shock nearly lowered his bow: An ape _pleading_, _begging_ for mercy? Now _that_ was indubitably unordinary…

"…Very well — but one false move, and Hunter there will put that arrow through your eye as he did to your friend." Dmitri, keeping his left arm firmly enlaced around the ape's neck, with his right hand frisked him to ensure that he possessed no hidden weapons; not finding any, he relaxed his grip, and the ape slipped free, collapsing in front of him.

He seemed to be shaking from exhaustion, and his breath was coming in hoarse rasps. It was then that Hunter examined his dilapidated appearance: sagging shoulders; armor that showed signs of no longer fitting due to lost weight; shaggy, unkempt fur; sword encased in a leather scabbard that most certainly was corroding the blade even now; and hollow, languid eyes that betrayed a hungry, haggard look.

This ape had suffered some sort of ordeal as had, now that Hunter glanced around at them, his now-dead compatriots.

"What has befallen you?" growled Dmitri, trying to maintain his wrathfulness but visibly relenting slightly at the ape's evident misfortune.

"We…we," gasped the ape, struggling to speak, "We have been…evicted…from our…homes…to the…north — "

"Evicted?" repeated Ivanova imperiously, evidently devoid of pity, "By whom?"

"By…dragons…" All three Avalarans glanced at one another: Was this the meaning of the dragon footprint they had found earlier? Were a band of strange dragons stalking the Enchanted Forest?

_But why?_ mused Hunter. _Why should dragons live here? With Malefor gone and the realms finally regaining some sense of peace, why this place?_ The Enchanted Forest was hardly a cheery or tranquil abode: It still teemed with Malefor's vile minions (these apes being perfect evidence), and it was altogether a rather nasty place. What would incite _dragons_ – who certainly had other options, either in the Dragon Army or in the North Isles – to set up permanent residence?

_Only one thing_, Hunter concluded darkly: _Privacy_.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"You found what?" asked Spyro.

"Evidence that there may be a subversive dragon presence in the Enchanted Forest: They are displacing the formerly unchallenged ape population in the northern regions."

Spyro sighed: Hunter's news was hardly a surprise. He glanced at Captain Marius, who had brought the Avalaran to him, and saw that the intelligence officer, too, was not disquieted by the information.

Hunter evidently perceived their unusual reaction: His eyes narrowed to glittering slits.

"You already knew about this."

"Well," said Spyro awkwardly, glancing at Marius, "Um…yes, Hunter, the fact is…we did." He felt a prick of shame: At the end of the War of Malefor, Avalar had, at the behest of the cantankerous and then-Chieftain Prowlus, detached itself from the Dragon Army. It had not been until halfway through the Dark War, when Prowlus had been killed and Dmitri elected his successor, that Avalar had healed its severed ties to the Temple.

Of course, it hadn't been nearly so simple: Many in the Dragon Army resented the Avalarans' "abandonment" (dictatorial as it was, at Prowlus's hands) of their ranks, especially in the wake of a catastrophic war whose repercussions would necessitate unity, _not_ petty division.

That said, even when Avalar rejoined the ranks of the Temple's allies in the Dark War, their political relationship with the Dragon Army had hardly been so easily restored: That being the case, intelligence was only suspiciously and infrequently shared between the two entities.

(Spyro found that to be a rather pathetic waste of a valuable asset: The Avalarans and the Dragon Army's combined intelligence had been what had enabled them to defeat the Dark Armies in the west, and Ivanova – the assassin who had been inducted by the Temple – had proven herself invaluable in the advancement of the Light Armies' designs. But, influential as he was, Spyro could not singlehandedly – nor expeditiously – amend the Dragon Army's policies in that regard.)

This awkward, distant relationship between the Dragon Army and Avalar had been shoved into a corner like some unsightly piece of vermin, and for nearly two decades it had remained unresolved.

Spyro gravely regretted that now, as he had over the course of the years…if only because Hunter was his friend.

"I'm sorry, Hunter," he told the Avalaran sincerely, "I really am. I wish I could change things — I'd do it in a heartbeat — "

"Say no more, friend," Hunter interjected gently, "I was merely surprised that you already knew. But tell me — what is it that these dragons are up to?"

Spyro glanced awkwardly at Marius. "Well, Hunter, that's something that we're trying to figure out, too…" He told him about the Raven's Wing, leaving out the part about their intentions to assassinate him — after all, Marius had cautioned him quite strongly to be discreet, and he didn't want Hunter to worry: There was no point in that.

After Spyro was finished explaining (which didn't take long, seeing as how little they knew), with Marius injecting his help occasionally, Hunter remained silent for a moment or two; then:

"Perhaps I and my brethren can help you with that: We could investigate — "

"No, Hunter," Spyro cut him off gently but firmly. "I don't want you exposing yourselves to this. From all indications," he added delicately with a second glance at Marius, "it could be a highly…volatile situation. We already have an agent inserted."

"But we can help!" insisted Hunter, "We know the forests better than anyone, and no one would suspect us of collusion since we live there, _and_ — "

"No, Hunter," Spyro repeated, "I can't allow that. Please — let us handle this…please…"

Hunter looked at him with stubborn curiosity, as though probing his eyes for the reason for his apprehensive obstinacy. Marius, however, piped up:

"Actually, sir…this may be a good idea."

"Are you kidding?" Spyro asked, rounding on him incredulously.

"Not at all," answered Marius coolly, "As Hunter said, the Avalarans know the forest better than anyone, and they would blend in far better than my agents — as it stands, they are being forced to creep around in the dead of night to procure information. The Avalarans – under, perhaps, the pretext of investigating this 'ape displacement' – could surreptitiously collect some information — nothing too active, of course…just miscellaneous snooping…"

"We're already _getting_ that," objected Spyro somewhat sharply. He sighed. "I'm sorry, it's just…" He turned to Hunter beseechingly. "I don't like the idea of you risking your necks for something that doesn't even concern you." He hadn't meant that to sound snobbish, but he thought that it did.

If so, Hunter ignored it: He reached out a hand and placed it gently on Spyro's shoulder.

"You are a friend, Spyro," he said, no longer addressing a superior officer, "What concerns you concerns me…and my people." Spyro looked at him for a long moment and then looked at Marius, who returned his gaze passively, as if to say, _You decide_. He sighed.

"Okay…if you're so sure…I guess I can't stop you — but _be careful_!" he enjoined forcefully, though he knew that Hunter could detect the fear behind his vehemence. "I don't want anyone hurt…or worse…"

Hunter grinned at him, a shrewd, feral grin; he dropped his hand from Spyro's shoulder and turned to leave.

"Don't worry, Spyro," he added calmly over his shoulder, "You know us Avalarans — swift as lightning, silent as shadow, and unseen as the wind."

Somewhere – Spyro knew not where, especially given that it was still raining outside – a shrill, horribly chilling, avian cry split the wet air.

It was the cry of a raven.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Lucas was glad that the weather seemed to be turning around, albeit slowly: The penetrative chill that had persisted over the past few days was finally beginning to ebb, chased away by a gathering warmth that was more consonant with the early spring. Even so, the temperature had yet to reach a comfortable level when he, Emvray, and Asterax (a quiet but rather boyish Fear Dragon) were led by Keo and Captain Asperverus out onto their first patrol.

The Dragon Army had, ever since the beginning of the Dark War, developed the habit of patrolling its borders with three- to six-dragon teams. The patrol routes radiated from the Temple (and, since recently, from Warfang), extending to the northern coasts, the western border of the Enchanted Forest, the southern curves of the Silver River (which snaked its way southeastwardly several miles to the south of the Temple), and the eastern edges of the mysterious woods that few dragons had ever probed.

Normally, the patrols consisted purely of full-fledged soldiers, but occasionally a few students – such as themselves – would tag along — obviously only on the safest or shortest ones.

Consistent with this unofficial procedure, Keo and Asperverus were taking them on a short, ovular route along the northern beaches: Nothing really ever happened up there, so there was little danger.

That had not always been the case: Early in the first war against the Dark Master, when Lucas's mother, Cynder, had been the Terror of the Skies, these northern stretches of grassland and thin forest and pearly white beach had been the site of various battles and skirmishes. Some of the bloodiest encounters of the war had occurred in these regions.

Of course, the excitement had fast faded, and for decades the Glass Coasts – as they were often called, due to the shimmering quality of the white sands as they reflected the light of the sun, which typically shone unoccluded there (_Not now_, Lucas thought wryly, glancing at the clouded sky) – had lain dormant, void of any sort of attraction.

One could hope, though…one could hope…

_Yeah, hope…_ So far, that had been a dead end; things were shaping up to be a highly dull afternoon: Even with the sun at the zenith of its intensity – a few hours past midday – the thick, rainy clouds remained obstinately opaque; the air was still, paralyzed by the weight of the rain, past and promised; and the terrain beneath the five dragons as they flew was blanketed in a depressive mist that blurred the landscape into a shapeless mass of gray.

_Lovely day_, Lucas thought dryly as they finished the northeastwardly leg of their circuit and inflected westward, following the edge of the North Sea, whose waters lay like a languid sheet of blackish blue.

"I thought you wanted these kids to go on a _patrol_?" said Keo to Captain Asperverus, his voice dripping in sarcasm. "There's nothing around for a dozen miles!" Lucas, Emvray, and Asterax smirked at one another, unseen by the other two, who flew ahead of them: It was amusing to watch Keo behave so presumptuously with Asperverus, given that he was only a decade or so older than the students themselves.

Captain Asperverus glanced back at them and then scowled at Keo. "Baby steps, Keo," he growled, "Baby steps…"

"The way this is going, they're gonna be taking 'baby steps' till they have their own kids…"

Lucas couldn't help it: He laughed. Asperverus cast him a withering glare.

"This is no laughing matter," he said to the group at large, "We are performing a very serious, very important task, one that — "

"What's that?" interrupted Keo.

"I said — "

"No! What's _that_?" Keo was pointing down; Lucas followed his indication: Far below (they were flying at perhaps four hundred feet), at the edge of a copse of trees, lay an irregular mass of brown and gray; it sported a look of complete misplacement, as though it had been tossed aside by some tempest.

"I'm not sure," replied Captain Asperverus, having spotted the mysterious shape, "but I know this: We're checking it out. Dive!" The five dragons spiraled down, landing several dozen feet north of the object, which Lucas now discerned to be a slipshod, dilapidated little boat in which was huddled an unidentifiable mass.

Captain Asperverus scowled at Asterax. "Asterax, you know the protocol: You were supposed to stay on overwatch."

"But I wanna see — "

"_Protocol_!"

"Aw, let it go, Captain," said Keo dismissively, his effulgent blue eyes more serious than Lucas had ever seen them. "I think someone may need our help." He gestured towards the boat, and Lucas, again, followed his indication:

The subfuscous lump that he had seen had stirred, revealing itself to be a little mole-like creature. He was emaciated and bent with fatigue, his beady, brownish eyes barely flickering as he struggled to gain a standing position.

Keo strode up to the creature, Lucas following without thinking. Asperverus did not call him back; he rose up into the air to provide the overwatch that Asterax had neglected.

Keo and Lucas paused a few feet from the little mole: He wore a sort of conical mining hat positively caked in dust (as was, in fact, everything in the boat). He came up to about Lucas's chest; Keo towered over him.

The boat itself displayed the effects of rot – probably from the briny sea across which it had evidently traversed – and contained miscellaneous supplies, the kind that one would expect to see in a vessel equipped for a quick trip.

"Can we help you?" Keo asked in a strong, slow voice, lowering his head so that he was eyelevel with the unfortunate itinerant.

"_Unh_…" The poor little creature trembled as he attempted to identify who was speaking to him. "Wh-Who…Who is that…?" he asked weakly. He tried to stand.

Keo pushed him back gently with a single digit of his right paw. "Easy," he said in a low, soothing voice, like a father soothing a distressed child, "You look a little worse for wear. What's your name?"

"A-Atuchor…"

"Atuchor," repeated Keo strongly, "My name is Keo, and this is Lucas." Lucas gave a nervous nod; he wasn't sure what to make of this. "You're a Manweersmall, right?"

"Y-Yes — but how…?" Keo gave him a dazzling, calming smile.

"I've been to Munitions Forge a couple of times."

"I-I don't remember you…"

"No, you probably don't," Keo said, shaking his head, "I was there as a soldier in the Dragon Army — there was a battle there towards the end of the Dark War…"

"Y-Yes…now I…remember…"

"Why have you come here, Atuchor?" Keo asked gently, "It's a long way from Munitions Forge, the seas are rough, and there's nothing around here." At this, Atuchor's agitation returned: He attempted yet again to stand. Keo pushed him back down a second time, but the Manweersmall refused to be pacified: He arose forcibly, staggered, and began to tremble…yet somehow Lucas suspected that he trembled out of more than exhaustion…

"I-I must speak…with Spyro!" the Manweersmall squeaked, his eyes wide, "I must…I must…immediately…" His voice was fading: Atuchor flopped back down, totally drained. His eyes fluttered as though he were on the verge of collapse.

"What's so urgent?" Keo inquired in a tender voice that contrasted sharply with his burliness. "What do you need to speak with Spyro about, Atuchor?" Atuchor locked his murky brown eyes with Keo's effulgent blue ones.

"I…I…" he stammered, as though overcome by the horror of his news. A glassy look fogged his eyes. "I…"

"Yes?" asked Keo softly.

"I…" Lucas felt a dark, icy feeling creeping up from the depths of his heart: Somehow, he knew that something very, very bad was coming…

"Exhumor…he is dead — murdered!"

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Spyro sat on the balcony, his gaze turned towards where he knew the sun was, though he couldn't see it through the thick, plumbean clouds. Already, as the day waned, the air was cooling; Spyro had tucked his wings close to his side and curled his tail around his paws.

Something didn't feel right: There was something wrong somewhere. There was a gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach, whispering these forebodings. He closed his eyes.

Years ago, when the Chronicler – that ancient dragon, that mysterious artisan of temporal magic – had first taught him to manipulate time, he had imparted to him a second skill: a sort of supersensory; he had learnt to expand his senses beyond his body, to see, to hear, to smell – even to touch and to taste – things far away — at first only a few dozen feet, but eventually up to innumerable miles.

But it took concentration, quiescence…something that he could hardly boast right now. He kept trying, but every time that he ranged his senses across space, the signals were fuzzy and indecipherable and synesthetic: Sounds would come through as bursts of color, sights as whiffs of odor, smells as blasts of sound…

Spyro shook his head, his mind settling back into his body. _No use_, he thought with a sigh. Then, it happened: A sound shattered the tranquil silence, pierced to his very bones.

He jumped: The noise had not come from nearby. It had echoed across space – and perhaps time – to resonate in his ears with a horrible clarity and shrillness.

Spyro shook his head, suddenly aware that his heart was pounding and that he was breathing hard, as though he had just run for miles. _What on Earth…?_

_Calm down, Spyro_, he told himself, forcing himself to take several deep breaths: His heartbeat and breathing decelerated, and he closed his eyes for a second time. Though his body was relaxed, his mind was not: He could not shake the feeling that he had recognized that sound, that awful sound… He had heard it just this morning:

The piercing cry of the raven.

Spyro shook his head again, keeping his eyes closed. _Focus_…

He expanded his senses like a bubble, slowly and steadily, testing each additional yard of perception to ensure that it remained coherent before advancing to the next…

_Someone's coming_…

Spyro looked up, opening his eyes: He spotted Keo flying towards him from the north, circling around the Temple. Immediately, he could tell that something was wrong: The strapping youth was flying at a rapid, anxious pace, an extremely somber look on his face.

He landed at Spyro's side. Spyro saw that his former pupil's bright blue eyes were alight with a gleam that Spyro associated with informing someone of the death of a relative; his heart skipped a beat.

"Keo…what is it? You look like somebody's died…"

"Somebody has," Keo told him in a quiet, deathly voice. Spyro's heart stopped altogether. _Oh no_…

"Who?" He hardly dared to ask the question.

"Exhumor." Spyro blinked. _What?_ How could _that_ be? How could Keo know that? Keo apparently perceived his thoughts:

"On our patrol today, we found a Manweersmall who had tried to cross the North Sea to tell you: Exhumor's dead…" He shifted his paws and averted his gaze, as though he feared to continue. "…he was murdered, actually."

"_Murdered_?" repeated Spyro, aghast; who would murder a _Manweersmall_?!

_You know who_, said a voice in his head.

"Yeah…murdered." Keo seemed exceedingly disquieted: He still refused to meet Spyro's eyes.

"Who…who told you this? Who was the Manweersmall?"

"He said his name was Atuchor."

_Atuchor_. Spyro knew Atuchor, had known him for years; they were fairly good friends; he had become Exhumor's chief subordinate when Mole-Yair had died, so many years ago…

"Where is he?" Spyro was suddenly concerned: Why had Keo not brought the Manweersmall with him…?

"He's in a hospital ward in Northeast Sector," replied Keo, "I dropped him off there; Captain Asperverus took the class away, and I came here to find you. Atuchor…he's asking for you."

"Lead the way," commanded Spyro immediately.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"Atuchor, how are you?" Spyro asked gently only a few minutes later, standing by the bed on which Atuchor had been laid, feeble and exhausted.

"Do not worry about me," croaked the Manweersmall, "Worry about my people…"

"The Manweersmalls?" Spyro was confused. "What do you mean, Atuchor?"

"Exhumor…was…was murdered! I fear that his…his killer…is not finished…with us…"

"You know who killed him?" Spyro asked, surprised.

"Oh yes, most definitely…"

"Who?"

"A strange dragon who came to us yesterday, seeking to bully us into forging munitions for him. We refused, and — " Here, Atuchor was interrupted by a horrible fit of coughing. "We refused," he began again, "and the stranger threatened to make us regret our decision. That very night — Exhumor was dead!"

"How?" Spyro asked gently.

"I am not sure…" the Manweersmall replied with a consternated expression, "I went to his chamber and found him lying on the ground, curled up — dead!" Atuchor was wracked by a second fit of coughing, which subsided after a moment. "There," he wheezed, "there was a…a foul smell…in the air…and I saw…white crystals…"

"White crystals?" Spyro didn't understand.

"Yes…white crystals…" A third coughing spasm overcame him, and a nurse approached to give him some sort of medicine.

"What's that for?" Spyro asked her.

"Hydrogen sulfide poisoning, sir," she replied, administering the treatment.

"Hydrogen sulfide? How'd he get that?"

"We don't know, sir; likely as not, that is what killed his friend. He has been talking about it ever since he was brought in…" She left without another word. Atuchor, his symptoms allayed by the medicine, settled back into a feeble lethargy.

_Hydrogen sulfide?_ Spyro repeated to himself. _How on Earth would he have gotten hydrogen sulfide poisoning…?_ He knew that hydrogen sulfide was a highly toxic gas that smelled like rotten eggs — having grown up in a swamp, he was all too familiar with noxious gases. _But on a volcanic island?_ He knew that the gas was profuse there, as well, but typically at higher elevations, closer to the volcano itself, where sulfur was commoner, and it didn't tend to last very long — normally it was converted into sulfur dioxides. How had it gotten into the underground network where the Manweersmalls lived?

_Someone put it there_, said a voice in the back of his head. _And you know who that someone is_… Spyro shook his head. The assassin had struck again…at another old friend: Parcel had been a colleague, a compatriot…but Exhumor had been a _friend_, a personal _friend_.

_He's getting closer_, Spyro thought. _Closer and closer…who's next on the list?_ He shook his head again. Time to worry about that later — for now, he needed to head to Munitions Forge…

"Atuchor, are you well enough to travel?"

"I…I believe so, sir…"

"You don't need to call me _sir_," Spyro told him with a small smile; he stood, consulted a nurse, confirmed Atuchor's mobility, and turned, spotting precisely the dragon whom he desired to see: Cynder. She was standing off to the side, near the opening to a balcony through which cool, crepuscular sunlight washed. Keo stood by her side. Spyro approached them both.

"Cynder," he murmured, "Can I talk to you…alone?"

"Of course," she answered. He nodded towards the balcony, and they headed outside.

The dusk was advancing quickly, the sun casting its dying rays across the sky in a desperate attempt to stave off the ravenous night, who draped the land in curtains of darkness split by vanes of light. The air was soft and enticing, rejuvenated by the rains.

Spyro always liked this time of day: so peaceful…

"Are you okay, Spyro?" Cynder asked him softly, breaking the silence, "I know Exhumor was your friend…"

"Yeah," he replied blearily, "I'll…I'll be fine, Cynder." He waited a moment, letting the vesper air wash over him. "I'm going to take Atuchor back to Munitions Forge…and see what I can do about this murderer." Her reaction was precisely what he had expected:

"Spyro, you can't! Maybe that's exactly what he wants — !"

"No," Spyro interrupted, too fatigued to waste time, "He's not done with me…not yet. I'll be fine, I can take care of myself." Cynder looked unconvinced that he would be totally out of danger, but she let it go. They paused, and Cynder drew nearer to him.

"Okay," she whispered, "but you've got to promise me that you'll _be careful_." Spyro smiled wanly.

"I will, Cynder…you know I will."

"Yeah…" She hugged him. Spyro closed his eyes: The feel of her wings wrapped around him, her cheek pressed against his, the proximity and warmth of her body — it was a soothing feeling. He needed that…sorely…

"You have to promise me something, too," he said finally, leaning back a bit, "This killer…he's aiming to torture me with these victims. That means…that means that you – or Arial or Lucas or Rose – could be next. You should be safe here at the Temple, but…please…just…be careful, okay?" Cynder smiled.

"Always, Spyro, always." She hugged him again, and they went back inside.

Everything was as they had left it, with Keo standing off to the side, surveying the quiet little hospital ward (Atuchor was one of the mere three patients there). Spyro turned to Cynder:

"Cynder, would you check on Atuchor? I wanna ask Keo about the circumstances that they found him in." Cynder gave him a look that told him that she saw straight through his façade, but she complied. Spyro approached Keo and addressed him in a low voice:

"Keo, I need to ask you a favor."

"Sure," replied the burly Fire dragon, "Anything, Spyro."

"I…" Spyro paused. He had to phrase this carefully: Keo didn't know anything about the assassin, and Spyro didn't want to tip him off… "I want you to just…watch over Cynder…while I head to Munitions Forge with Atuchor." He tried to pass off his concern as simply that of a father looking out for the welfare of his family. Keo seemed to buy it:

"Sure thing, Spyro — you got it."

"Thanks, Keo…" Spyro turned and headed back over to Atuchor's bed, where Cynder was conversing with him quietly. The Manweersmall was still lethargic, but he was alert and awake. That would have to suffice.

"Well, Atuchor, if you're sure that you're up to it, I'd like us to head out to Munitions Forge now, to get there before nightfall…make sure that nothing else happens."

"Of course," rasped Atuchor, forcing himself up into a sitting position. Spyro leaned over, examined him, and then gently took him in his teeth by the scruff of the neck, gingerly lifting him off the bed to make sure that his grip would hold.

"Comfortable?" he asked Atuchor, his voice muffled by his mouthful of fur.

"As much as can be expected," replied Atuchor, hanging limply from Spyro's mouth. Spyro trotted over to the balcony, spreading his wings in preparation to lift off into the deepening dusk.

"Spyro!" He turned: Cynder.

"Hmm?" he asked around Atuchor.

"…Be careful, Spyro." He smiled.

"Yeah," said Spyro, "Sure thing." With that, he took off, carrying Atuchor northward into the evening sky. As he flew, he kept trying to quell the growing sense of dread in his heart: His fear that the current victims were only the beginning of a long, painful train was deepening every minute.

_Relax, Spyro_, he told himself fiercely. _Relax. You'll know more once you get to Munitions Forge_. Hopefully. The prospect of learning more about this assassin did little to soothe his fears.

It also didn't help that, as he flew northward, perpendicular to the setting sun, Atuchor the enfeebled Manweersmall dangling from his jaws, bouncing with each flap of his wings and each gust of wind that they encountered, he continued to hear that same horrible, piercing sound that had haunted him since Keo had brought him the news of Exhumor's death:

The call of the raven.


	8. Burning Blood

**CHAPTER 8**

"Burning Blood"

"I must warn you," cautioned Atuchor, "This probably will not be a pleasant sight…" Spyro swallowed, trying to stave off the faint sense of nausea inspired by the stagnant, miasmic air of the Manweersmall tunnels. They turned a corner into a hallway (or, rather, a tunnel) and entered the only adjoining room.

Spyro felt an icy needle of grief go through his heart; his stomach turned; his nausea increased: Exhumor lay before him, curled up on the ground in a sort of fetal position, his body shriveled and ghastly. His skin had an almost bluish pallor that struck Spyro as chillingly morbid in the feeble light of the various luminescent fungi and crystals.

"Good heavens," he whispered, walking slowly up to the body. Exhumor's eyes were still open, and they and his face expressed not pain or fear, but pure surprise. "He looks like he died instantly…"

"He did — near as we can tell," replied Atuchor grimly, "A second Manweersmall was just behind him when he entered the room; when I came, they were both on the floor — Exhumor dead, the other barely breathing. He was rushed off to the infirmary." Spyro hadn't been aware that the Manweersmalls even _had_ an infirmary, and he was certain that it wasn't sanitary or at all conducive to the victim's recovery, but he let it slide.

"Is he okay?" Atuchor sighed.

"We don't know yet; he still hasn't woken up." Spyro thought that that boded ill: a victim unconscious who hadn't awoken in the past twenty-four hours? That didn't sound good… Then again, he wasn't a doctor…

"How did this happen?" murmured Spyro, more to himself than to Atuchor, glancing back at Exhumor's body.

"Like I said, I just came in, smelled the odor, saw the crystals, and ran for help. We didn't move the body because…well, no one wanted to be the one to do it. He looks so…" Atuchor never completed his sentence, but Spyro didn't need him to: He knew exactly what the Manweersmall meant.

There was an air of inviolable deathliness about the corpse, as though it were both sacred and horribly infectious. The entire room bore the air of a tomb.

Spyro spotted a glint of white: He turned his gaze to the back of the chamber, where a little clump of white crystals sat gleaming in the dim light. He approached it.

There was the faintest smell of putrid eggs that his keen olfactory sense could detect, but other than that, the crystals seemed ordinary, aside from their strange glow. They seemed to reflect light more efficiently than the other crystals around the room.

"Do you know what this is?" he asked Atuchor. The Manweersmall shook his head.

"We have no means of identifying it, and…well, again, no one really wanted to come in here."

"I don't blame them," Spyro said seriously, leaning in to examine the crystals more closely, trying to think what they might be. He had excelled in Chemistry (when he had taken it, years ago), but he wasn't a professional…

"It looks like salt…but it's not: There's water around it, but it's not dissolving…" Indeed, there was the tiniest, thinnest puddle of water around the heap of crystals (and he suspected that _that_ was what was giving off the rotten odor — dissolved hydrogen sulfide), but the crystals themselves showed no trace of dissolution.

"What does that mean?" asked Atuchor with a glimmer of hopefulness. Spyro shook his head sadly.

"I can't say — it just means that this compound is insoluble in water. It could any one of dozens…more, really…" Atuchor looked mildly crestfallen.

"Well, I doubt knowing _how_ this was done will help us much. What concerns me is the perpetrator."

"Yes, you said something about a strange dragon visiting the preceding day?"

"Yes," answered Atuchor solemnly, "Some mysterious stranger – he never gave a name, and he wore a sort of cloak, so we could not discern his features – who demanded that we forge him munitions."

"Anything in particular?"

"He never got around to that: Exhumor refused flat out, and the dragon was not eager to negotiate. He threatened us…and left."

"And you never got a good look at him?"

"Not anything that you could use to identify him. The only real thing we could see was that his scales and eyes were dark-colored." Spyro sighed — he couldn't help it: That wasn't much to go on.

"I know it's not much," said Atuchor sadly, "but I'm afraid that it's all we have. Exhumor seemed fairly disturbed by the visit — more so than the rest of us."

"How?" asked Spyro, somewhat confused.

"He was just…consternated by the dragon's words. Quite honestly, some of us did not take him too seriously — even though he _did_ kill one of us before he left…"

"What?" asked Spyro a little sharply, "What do you mean? He killed someone before Exhumor?" Atuchor nodded somberly.

"It was his means of convincing us of the gravity of his request…and of the repercussions that would ensue if we were to refuse." Spyro bowed his head, confused. If the dragon had told the Manweersmalls that they would rue defying him…why would he kill their leader so soon after making his request? That didn't seem the most effective way of garnering compliance…

_He wasn't _after _compliance_, Spyro realized. _This is the assassin — he doesn't care about the Manweersmalls, he just wanted an excuse to kill one of them, and for that he needed to offend them_.

That wouldn't have been hard: Exhumor had been a singularly surly creature, whatever his good qualities: Even Spyro, who usually had little trouble getting along with even the most cantankerous of beings, had been unable to defuse his irritability.

The mere fact of bombastically asking the Manweersmalls – coercively or not – to produce munitions without obvious recompense would have been enough to set him off.

Spyro sighed again. "Well, it looks like those repercussions have come."

"Yes," said Atuchor nervously, "and I'm afraid that this may just be the first — what if this mystery dragon wants to wipe us all out? If he could get to Exhumor like this undetectably, he could get to all of us — "

"I don't think you'll need to worry about that," Spyro said grimly. Atuchor paused, confused.

"What do you mean?"

Spyro straightened up from the bent posture in which he had been investigating the white crystals, sighing yet again as he did so.

"Just call it a gut feeling," he replied wearily, "I don't think you'll be seeing that dragon ever again." He went to the door, where Atuchor had remained the entire time.

"I'm sorry about all of this, Atuchor," he said in a voice weighted by penitent sincerity, "I really, really am."

"I am simply glad that you came," said Atuchor with a sorrowful look at his dead leader, "The Manweersmalls are very dismayed by this tragedy. Your presence, brief as it has been, has already worked wonders for them."

"You'll be fine," he assured the little Manweersmall as they walked together out into the tunnel, heading towards the exit to the underground network, "You'll find a new leader." He gave Atuchor a feeble smile. "I wouldn't be surprised if they elected _you_." Atuchor grimaced.

"I don't think I'm cut out for that," he replied with heavy candor. Spyro touched his shoulder with the very tip of his tail.

"I didn't think that I was, either," he told him sympathetically, "Trust me, you'd be fine." Atuchor didn't look convinced, but just then they debouched into the open (well, sort of open) air.

Spyro was glad to be out of those stifling caves, even if their replacement was the murky, ashen sky of Munitions Forge, coupled with searing blasts of heat from nearby lava pools and volcanic vents. As a Fire dragon, he was really immune to the adverse effects of heat…but that didn't mean that he was comfortable in temperatures hot enough to melt lead.

The fatigued, rational part of his brain told him that that was absurd, that it was not _that_ hot outside, but he didn't really care at this point. He was trying to sort through his emotions, and that occupied all of his strength for the moment.

Exhumor's death was painful, he wasn't going to ignore that fact: The surly Manweersmall had been a friend, despite his incivility, if only because he had helped Spyro and Sparx when they had first come to Munitions Forge.

Mole-Yair's death had been a trial, too, but he hadn't been _murdered_; he had simply died of age. Exhumor, murdered…that was hard. _Really_ hard.

And the insurmountable question was _why_: Why on _Earth_ would someone want to murder a Manweersmall? There was no point to it.

_Wrong_, said that rational voice in his brain as he and Atuchor trekked aimlessly along the charred pathways of the island. _That's wrong: There _is_ a point…you_. He knew that the assassin was attempting to torture him (and he couldn't pretend that he wasn't succeeding…), but why Exhumor? Why not just pick one of his students — he was closer to them.

Then, all of sudden, it clicked: He understood.

The victims – Zetch, Parcel, and now Exhumor – were all associated with him in increasingly familiar ways: Zetch had been a friend, a former pupil, but he had passed out of memory a few years before (and Spyro was beginning to suspect that that death had been totally unplanned); Parcel had been a colleague of sociopolitical importance but of little personal significance to him; and Exhumor had been a long-time friend, not particularly close, but associated with memories such that his death would sting more than those of the previous two.

_So what does that mean? Who's the next victim?_ Someone still associated with him, probably in the same way as Exhumor: through memories —

Spyro's heart – and his legs – stopped entirely. Atuchor paused, looking concerned.

"Spyro? Are you all right?"

Spyro did not hear him: An icy sense of dread had just blossomed in his heart like some sinister flower. He knew who the next victim would be: the only person who, like Exhumor, was associated with him through memories of the days prior to the Dark Master's return, of his travels around the islands attempting to gather together the Guardians, the only other friend he really had outside of the Dragon Army, excluding the Avalarans:

_Kain!_

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"How did this happen?" Scabré demanded furiously, "Not two days ago, _she_ was in the hospital, completely oblivious, and _he_ was in _our_ custody, under lock and key!" He pointed at the bodies of Sinmaclée and Tremon laid out on cold metal slabs in front of him.

The coroner grimaced: "I've already done the autopsies: Both of them died from lethal injections, though of different chemicals — her from an alkaline and him from an acid."

"_How_, though?" Scabré growled at her.

"The girl was killed by an injection of potassium hydroxide solution that caused almost immediate cardiac arrest. Someone inserted a needle directly into her superior vena cava and fired the saline." She pointed out a minuscule puncture wound on Sinmaclée's chest. "Judging from postmortem ion concentrations, I did the math: twenty milliliters of point-five molar KOH. It helped that the killer left the syringe behind," she added, pointing out a syringe sealed in an evidence bag on a counter to her right.

"But _how_ did the killer get to her?" demanded Scabré, still fuming, "How? She was in a _hospital_, with nurses checking in on her regularly! She had seen the killer before — why didn't she _scream_…?"

"My guess: The killer came in while she was sedated and between nurse checkups," replied the coroner sadly. Scabré snorted, glancing at the girl's body: If not for her emaciated form, she could have been sleeping. It was truly a pity.

"What about him?" he growled, jabbing a claw at Tremon's body, which ranked far lower aesthetically: There was a horrible, formless, jagged hole in the base of his neck, as though something had burnt through the tissue, his trachea, _and_ the carotid artery.

"Same idea: injection of hydrofluoric acid – fifteen mils of point-five molar solution – into the lower trachea; burned through the tissue, eroded the carotid artery, and caused a massive hemorrhage. I've ruled the official cause of death as exsanguination. I'm afraid that he would have died much more slowly…and felt every bit of it…until his nerves were scorched, that is…" Scabré gazed at the body, mortified yet at the same time unpitying: Tremon had earned his fate, his sister had not.

"How could they have gotten to him in here?"

The coroner shrugged. "I dunno — that's your job, right?"

"Yeah," grunted Scabré, "Yeah, I guess it is. What about these chemicals — the potassium hydro-whatever and the acid thing? Those don't sound like things you could pick up from the average vendor on the street…"

"They aren't," she replied seriously, "Potassium hydroxide is highly caustic, but it's pretty common in soap manufacturing, and it's a staple strong base — most Chemistry instructors carry some; of course, you could cook it up yourself."

"How?"

"Take a mineral called sylvite – potassium chloride, really – and react it with water: That would release chlorine and hydrogen gas and leave you with potassium hydroxide, either already in solution or readily soluble depending on how much water you used. A clever chemist could have set it up so that the KOH dissolved immediately upon formation into precisely the volume of water necessary.

"It's the hydrofluoric acid that worries me: It's highly toxic – not to mention incredibly corrosive _and_ penetrative – and it's almost always formed as hydrogen fluoride gas, which can cause cardiac arrest, blindness — death. It's produced quite a bit in industry as a precursor to fluorine compounds, but always in highly controlled environments. That…and it's rather stringently governmentally regulated.

Again, a clever chemist could get around that: With some basic equipment, a handful of fluorite, and a tiny amount of concentrated sulfuric acid, you could make the hydrofluoric acid yourself — or rather, you could make HF gas and then bubble it through the correct amount of water."

"This sounds complicated," replied Scabré. He had never been particularly precocious in Chemistry…

"Not really," said the coroner wisely, "Sulfuric acid is pretty much universal – you could swipe it from practically any processing plant, in concentrated or dilute form – or for that matter, you could concoct it yourself; and fluorite is a ubiquitous mineral — calcium fluoride. It's also used frequently in industry…"

"But why go to those lengths?" asked Scabré, more to himself than to her, "Why bother with such potent and uncommon weapons? Why not just rip their throats open and be done with it? It would have been faster…"

"But less noticeable," pointed out the coroner darkly, "I think maybe your killer was trying to send a message…to _whom_, I don't know…"

"Leave that to me," Scabré replied smoothly, "Now, sulfuric acid: You said that that could be stolen, yes?"

"Yes — in fact, there _was_ a robbery a few days ago in a mineral processing plant down in Pueris…big scandal…"

"But these others – fluorite and sylvite – where would one procure _them_?"

"Both of them are found in the mines to the north of Pueris — same processing plant, in fact… Actually, hospitals use potassium chloride in lethal injection, so he could have procured it there, but a theft from a hospital would have been more noticeable; I would guess that it is more likely that he obtained sylvite from Pueris."

"Pueris…" _That name keeps coming up_. That coincided perfectly with his smuggler theory, which he had yet to check — he had only just gotten back from Juzgara when Trigren alerted him of the deaths. Those two dead dragons provided him with rather compelling reason to investigate further into his theory.

_Looks like I'm headed to Pueris_…

"It appears that I will be paying that city a visit," Scabré said.

"Detective," said the coroner, suddenly deathly serious, "be careful: This killer…well, he's already demonstrated a combination of savagery and cruel intellect. It doesn't take a trained investigator to figure out that he killed these two to cover his tracks. The same fate could befall _you_ if you don't watch yourself — "

"Thank you for your concern," he interjected smoothly with a small smile, "I am well prepared for that eventuality. I will be cautious. Thank you for your help." With that terse but gracious adieu, he left the cold morgue chamber and stepped out into the sunlight.

Scabré spread his wings and lifted off into flight, climbing his way above the tall buildings of Vunoire and turning his course southwestward.

He shot off towards the horizon, towards Pueris…and, hopefully, towards the assassin whose end he sensed was approaching rapidly.

_Have no fear, you viper — I am on my way_.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Hunter perched atop a spindly tree that crowned a jagged mountain ledge; his sharp, feline eyes scanned the peculiar – and rather ominous – sight below him:

He had lost no time in taking advantage of his green light from Spyro to investigate the strange dragon presence in the Enchanted Forest, and it had been child's play to track the interlopers to the northwestern areas of the forest, particularly given that he already had a rough idea of their location from the information that Spyro had given him.

In the little valley that lay below him lay a singularly strange sight: a forge site being operated by dragons. Dragons had little need for the vast majority of munitions — typically, the only things that they required were armor and explosives. Thus, it was rare enough to see dragons operating a forge, especially out in the middle of nowhere…and especially since these weren't soldiers.

Hunter watched as the dragons meandered back and forth about miscellaneous duties: They were dirty, crude, undisciplined dragons. He could see them bumping into one another, yelling at each other, working metal into slipshod matériel with deplorable imprecision…

"Hey!" said a voice suddenly, "Who are you?" Hunter turned, a shot of adrenaline coursing through his blood; a big, brutish dragon was glaring at him, standing a few paces to the right of the little tree in which he was perched. Two others were several meters behind him, and Hunter could see that the group was attracting attention from the forge proper.

"I…" Hunter glanced around: His best exit was a small crag in the mountain, which he knew wound its way through a series of cliffs and eventually opened up to dense forest. If he could get into the trees, he could get away. But first… "I'm simply hunting," he replied evasively.

"Hunting what?" demanded the dragon, "There's nothing around here."

"Evidently there is," retorted Hunter slyly, glancing over at the forge. Immediately, he knew that that was a mistake: The dragons were on their guard. Before they had had thought him simply an intrusive wanderer; now they suspected something more underhanded.

"Why are you here?" the dragon snarled again.

"I've told you," said Hunter, "I'm hunting — see?" He drew the glaive that was slung across his back. He would rather have used his bow, but he could not afford the time it would take to draw and aim an arrow, not when he needed the element of surprise.

"You're one of those cheetah people from the southeast," the dragon noted.

"Very good," Hunter pretended to congratulate the stupid dragon's belated observation, "which is why I must be going — "

"Why are you hunting so far from home?" Hunter hadn't expected a legitimate – and tricky – question; he did not answer, and the dragon seemed to take that as proof positive that he should be detained.

"Why don't you come down here and we'll talk this over somewhere quieter…" Hunter considered that: He had no doubt that these dragons had no real intention of discussing anything, and he was in little position to argue. He would have to make a run for it.

"Certainly…" He jumped lightly down from the tree and walked slowly towards the dragon, who had foolishly lowered his guard at his query's acquiescence. As he passed by, Hunter whirled the glaive, bringing the blade across the dragon's neck.

Blood gushed forth from the wound, but before the other two dragons could even blink in surprise, Hunter had darted into the crag that was his escape route. He raced along the rock hallway, replacing his glaive and drawing his bow and a single arrow, which he fitted to the string just as he came out into the open.

The crag opened onto a small ledge, with the forest lying perhaps a dozen meters below. Hunter jumped down into the trees, hit the ground lightly, rolled, and bounded off. He could hear the crashing sound of pursuers — the two dragons must have circled around and seen him exit the mountain crevice.

A shadow passed over him, and Hunter instinctively jumped sideways, crouched into the dense underbrush, and looked up: One of the dragons was soaring overhead. He had shot past and was looping back.

Hunter raised his bow, took careful aim, and let his arrow fly: The deadly, bronze-tipped shaft connected with the dragon squarely in the neck; he fell from the sky with a crash.

Hunter turned around, suspecting that the second dragon had followed him on foot, and, surely enough, the brute was bumbling his way through the trees. It appeared that he had seen his comrade plummet and was racing towards the spot of his landing. He did not even see the Avalaran as he crashed towards him.

Hunter set a second arrow against the bowstring, aimed, and fired: The arrow embedded itself into the dragon's eye, taking his life with it. Hunter stood slowly, his hand on a third arrow as he scanned the trees…

_Nothing_. Hunter smiled to himself, turned, and raced off through the trees.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"I am certain, Dmitri," Hunter told his Chieftain a few hours later. They stood at the banks of the Silver River, the Avalaran Village to their backs, hidden from sight by its position atop a little plateau and the palisade that surrounded it.

It was sunset: Blood-red light was glancing off the surface of the water, turning it a fiery shade of vermillion. The wind hummed overhead, spilling down the side of the valley and rushing through the trees, stirring their leaves into a sort of sleepy dance.

Hunter would have found the ambiance peaceful, but he could not help but associate it with the recent wars that had plagued the forest.

"A forge…strange," mused Dmitri, "What could they possibly be doing with a forge? And you say that they were fashioning _weapons_?"

"Yes, I distinctly saw swords and shields — at least."

"What could dragons want with such things?"

"I do not know, but I think that the Dragon Army should be apprised. This seems to be precisely the sort of detail for which they have been searching."

"Yes, agreed. Go." Hunter nodded and turned eastward, his back to the setting sun. "Hunter." Dmitri's suddenly quiet, concerned voice caught Hunter off-guard; he turned: His Chieftain was backlit by the sun's sanguinaceous light — with which his green eyes contrasted sharply.

"Yes, Dmitri?"

"Be careful: Those dragons know who you are now, and I do not think that they will take kindly to meeting you again. You have likely made their list." Hunter nodded.

"Do not worry, Dmitri — I shall exercise all caution."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"_Nothing_?" asked Captain Marius wearily.

"Absolutely nothing," replied Lieutenant Katadioka quite evenly.

"Blast," Marius remarked with the same profound tiredness.

"Not a trace," reiterated Katadioka, "As far as I can tell, whoever murdered Zetch has vanished from the face of the Earth."

"Well, that's just fantastic," Marius growled, more to himself than to anyone else. He looked up and spotted a dragon waiting patiently at the door…a dragon who was all too familiar…

"Lieutenant, will you be excused momentarily? I have an important appointment…"

"Certainly, sir," replied Katadioka crisply; he left, and the other dragon entered.

"So?" asked Marius.

"It's a mess," was the dragon's answer, "The entire Enchanted Forest is one bundle of chaos after another, and I've only just begun to sort things out. Whoever your man is on the inside, he's _very_ good — he couldn't give me anything definitive just yet, but he _did_ point me in the right directions."

"And?"

"The Raven's Wing does indeed have connections across the realms, extending at least as far as Vunoire and Warfang. It's impossible for me to guess how deep their influences run, however, and as of yet the intelligence does not point to anything conclusive other than the extensiveness of the syndicate."

"Blast," Marius repeated, shaking his head, "So we are precisely where we have been this entire time: We know more, yet we know nothing."

"That would be the gist of it, sir," the other dragon agreed with a mixture of amusement and mild sadness. "We only have disjoint quanta of facts, discrete data: Once we find a connective element, we will know _everything_." That was a bit of an exaggeration, but Marius appreciated the young officer's enthusiasm. He gave him a wan smile.

"Then I suppose you had better get back to your work."

"Yes sir!" replied the officer with a crisp, boyish smile. He left at a brisk pace, and Marius went to work at the papers jumbled on his desk. He sifted through them, growling at the disorganization — he hated disorganization. After a few minutes, he had them sorted into neat piles, and he was performing a quick inventory of the documents when an intelligence officer knocked at the door.

"Captain? An Avalaran is here to see you, sir. He says that it is urgent and that he can only speak to you. Shall I send him away?" _An Avalaran?_ Marius thought, _That's odd…the only Avalaran who would ask for me is_ —

"No, no, Lieutenant, see him in…and then shut the door."

"Yes sir," replied the junior officer obsequiously; she vanished, and a moment later Hunter the Avalaran stood before Marius, the door sealed behind him.

"Hunter — I assume that this is not a social call."

"Hardly," replied the Avalaran, "I have information for you…"

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Blades of blood-red light sliced the air over the wild expanse of trees crowning immense, jagged white-gray rock that was Tall Plains. Darkness fell very quickly on the forest floor, as the thick canopy and natural altitude of the island caused the sun to fall out of sight with an unearthly celerity; the temperature dropped several degrees, and crisp, whistling winds began to stir all across the island.

Kain, the Chief of the Attlawan Tribal Council, prowled the edge of the Attlawan Village, a second Attlawan – a timber-wolf-furred, fern-green-eyed one with a soft, sagacious gaze – strolling beside him.

"I have a strange feeling, Malachi…" muttered Kain, glaring about at the adumbrated trees as though they held the cause of his anxiety.

"I don't see why," replied Councilor Malachi honestly, in his calm, cool way, "There is little about which to fret; we have had decades with nothing about which to fret…"

"I just have a weird feeling," snapped Kain. He sighed. "There is something coming, my friend…something evil."

"How can you be sure?"

"Like I said, I have a feeling."

"Perhaps it is just the twilight getting to you?" suggested Malachi tranquilly, "It has a way of unnerving people…"

"I do not think so…" Kain glanced to his left, into the village proper, and something strange caught his eye: A small crowd of Attlawans had gathered near his hut, clustered around something that he could not see. The confused noise they were making just then reached his ears. "What the…?"

"What is it?" asked Malachi, following his gaze; his brow furrowed. "Strange," he muttered, "I wonder what's going on over there…"

"I don't know," Kain growled, suddenly on his guard, "but I'm going to find out." He turned and strode briskly towards the crowd, Malachi following right behind him. As he approached, Kain began to discern a few snippets of conversation:

"…what's he doing — ?"

"…no clue — "

" — where's Kain — ?"

"What is this?" Kain demanded, stepping into the flock of Attlawans; they parted immediately at his voice, and Kain saw what _this_ was:

A wiry dragon sat amidst them, just in front of Kain's hut, his tail curled neatly over his paws, his bluish scales shimmering mistily in the dusky light, sanguinaceous eyes glinting impishly. He seemed to be waiting for someone or something. He smiled at Kain's appearance.

Kain, for his part, felt the hairs on the back of his neck shoot up in anticipation: He didn't recognize this dragon. There were no epaulettes on his shoulders, and he knew better than to trust any dragon that he wasn't sure was from the Dragon Army…

"You must be Kain," remarked the intruder, still grinning puckishly.

"Forgive me if I do not exchange the usual pleasantries," replied Kain coldly, in an utterly unapologetic tone. "Who are you?" he demanded. The dragon continued to grin.

"You may call me Sefdomai."

"Why are you here?" Kain growled, his wariness completely unabated.

"I have a business proposition for you and your…charming people," the dragon replied in a smooth, condescending voice, still grinning that infuriatingly amused smile.

"We do not do business with dragons," hissed an Attlawan from the crowd.

"You do business with the Dragon Army," Sefdomai retorted in that same smooth, patronizing tone.

"We have an understanding with the Dragon Army," Kain declared curtly.

"I hope that we may reach a similar understanding," professed the dragon.

"What understanding?" Kain asked, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

"I have certain matériel for which I require a harbor of sorts. I wish to use your island as a transit point, moving these impedimenta from Vunoire to the mainland."

"'Impedimenta'?" repeated Kain, "'Matériel'? Forgive me if I question the legitimacy of your request."

"It is very legitimate," the dragon said quite neutrally.

"Is it not against dragon law in Vunoire to engage in such transoceanic 'business propositions'?" countered Kain with a sneer, "If I recall, the treaty which ended the Dark War and the new constitutional monarchy in Vunoire enjoined practices of that nature. Would you have me impugn my people's neutrality by facilitating a criminal enterprise?"

"Pretty speech," replied the dragon with a sneer to match Kain's own, "from a 'people' who have no regard for dragon laws."

"No," answered Kain forcefully, his ire now raised, "I have no regard for _you_…or for your request. Get off our island. Now." Several of the Attlawans voiced their agreement, and a couple even drew thick swords from their scabbards; out of the corner of his eye, Kain saw Malachi wave them down.

"…Very well," conceded Sefdomai after a tense moment, "But…I think that you may regret the haste with which you have spurned my offer." The mysterious dragon swept away without another word and before anyone could devise a rebuttal; once he was several yards off from the crowd, he spread his wings and lifted off into the dusk air, soaring away to the west.

Malachi approached Kain, together with a third member of the Council, Zama, an elderly, white-furred Attlawan with very vivacious blue eyes.

"That was very strange," Malachi murmured — as though anyone needed reminding…

"Very strange indeed," concurred Zama sagely, "_Ominously_ strange, in fact…"

"Do you have the same feeling about this that I do?" Kain asked him somewhat eagerly, hoping that perhaps he was not alone in his suspicions. Zama shrugged noncommittally.

"I cannot say _what_ I feel — this is all so abrupt, so unexpected."

"Why is this such a big disturbance?" asked Malachi innocently, "I do not see cause for so much concern…"

"A mysterious dragon claiming to be from Vunoire shows up here looking to 'harbor "matériel"'?" said Kain quietly, "Such an incongruity certainly qualifies as disturbing…at the _least_…"

"He seemed quite intent on broaching the issue of our unusual relations with the Dragon Army…" Zama observed almost nervously, "And for someone who professed to desire a profitable and mutually neutral business arrangement…he became very hostile very quickly…too quickly…"

"Agreed," grunted Kain with a nod, "but I fear that there is nothing to do about it now: He is gone — hopefully for good…"

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Only a few hours later, Kain paced before the low fire on the hearth in his hut, occasionally glancing at the flames and watching the thin, pungent smoke ribboning up through the chimney and out into the air of the looming night. Every few minutes or so he would draw the sword strapped to his side and gaze at his dim reflection in its crude blade.

At his next such pause, his desultory and worried thoughts began to consolidate: _What could that dragon possibly have wanted? Surely not a 'business proposition' — he was far too quick to react to our dismissals. And Zama was right: He seemed very eager to discuss the Dragon Army_…

The overarching, persistent question was _why_: Why had the dragon come? For a business deal, as he'd said — or was there some ulterior, more sinister motive? Kain thought that likely: Too many details didn't make sense. And then there was his gut feeling…

That nagging sensation in the pit of his stomach had not subsided; rather, it had intensified since the mysterious Sefdomai's not so friendly departure. He could not shake the suspicion that that dragon boded ill on some account. But how? Where was the threat? And _why_, why threaten the Attlawans…?

_What could he have wanted with us_? Kain wondered. _What do we have that would interest a dragon from Vunoire — particularly concerning _trade_…_?

Kain sighed and paused before the feeble, lambent firelight; he drew his sword and gazed at his own troubled, haggard face. There was a strange glint on the blade – probably starlight filtering in from outside, from the doorway behind him – that was obscuring his reflection. He watched it for a few seconds before his thoughts turned back to the mysterious visitor.

_And why has this happened so suddenly? We had no warning_…

The glint shifted left; now his entire face was blocked by its spectral light…

_His eyes were so strange — the color of dark blood…yet they gleamed like fire_…

The glint, as though responding to his thought, intensified, as though the star that was its source had drawn just a little closer to Earth…

_Very strange indeed_…

The glint grew brighter…

_What the — _?

Kain leaped sideways, just barely dodging the claws that raked the air where his neck had been a fraction of a second before; he rolled and bounced to his feet, his sword poised for action: Sefdomai stood smirking before him, blood-red eyes glinting…

"I thought I saw something in my sword," Kain growled, his hand clenching his sword, "You ought to watch those eyes of yours — they're dead giveaways…"

"How unfortunate," Sefdomai drawled, utterly unconcerned, "I _will_ have to remember that the next time that I assassinate someone…"

"Assassinate?" Kain repeated, slowly shifting his weight in case the dragon lunged, "So that's why you really came here? Why bother with the pretext of your 'business proposition'? Why not just attack me in my sleep?"

"I have my reasons," Sefdomai hissed; he moved, blindingly fast, claws shining eerily in the firelight. Kain managed to deflect the blow with his sword, but the dragon's tail came up fluidly and landed a resounding _whack_ straight to his solar plexus.

Kain felt the breath rush out of his lungs, his grip on his sword relax, his muscles bunch in pain; something struck him from behind, sent him flying across to the other side of the room. Instantly, he felt Sefdomai's enormous weight pin him forcefully to the floor, his hot breath searing the back of Kain's neck, a choking, hellish scent burning his nostrils…

"Now," Sefdomai hissed in a voice that befitted a demon, "now, Kain, you will die!" Kain just felt the dragon's huge, wet teeth part the erect hairs on the nape of his neck when suddenly the weight pressing down upon him was doubled and then just as suddenly lifted; he heard a struggle, a dull, smacking sound, as though someone had been hit with a heavy blow, and then nothing but labored breathing.

Kain rolled over and struggled to a half-sitting position (he could not summon the strength to stand): Of all dragons, _Spyro_ stood before him, teeth bared, claws gleaming, spectrally backlit by the light of the flames on the hearth; his amethyst eyes burned with a fire that Kain had never seen before in the young purple dragon, and his entire form was enshrouded in an ethereal, barely visible gleam, like some sort of cherubic aura.

Kain had never been afraid of Spyro – they were friends, after all – but right then, he felt something arise in him that he could only define as fear.

"We meet at last," Spyro growled at Sefdomai, "You know, you've been causing a _lot_ of trouble recently. I think that it's about time that you faced your crimes." Sefdomai, breathing hard, bleeding from a wound in his side, glared back at the purple dragon; then, strangely, he smiled.

"Indeed we do meet at last, my young purple friend. I must say, I have so enjoyed watching you crack slowly under the strain of losing your comrades…one by one…"

"I'm not cracking at all," Spyro assured him in a perfectly unwavering voice. Kain believed him.

"Oh, perhaps not — but you are so close, my friend, so close. I can sense the burning in your blood, the rage rising inside you…against me, against death, against the _injustice_ of it all, yes?"

"What are you prattling about?" Spyro spat.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about," Sefdomai replied softly, narrowing his eyes. "But I'm afraid that my work is not yet complete, your trials have yet to come to an end; I must be going…"

"You're not going anywhere!" snarled Spyro.

"Oh, but I am. You see, you must really _feel_ the rage before it consumes you…and who am I to deny you the incertitude of wondering who my next victim will be? No, I think that the fire in your blood has yet to reach its fullest heat: This anger, this rage that you feel now — it is but an inkling of what I'd like to see…"

"The only thing you're going to see," growled Spyro in a cold, deadly voice, "is my claws ripping your throat out!" He started to move forward, but just then, Sefdomai moved, in that same blindingly fast pace with which he had surprised Kain: He withdrew something from a small pouch strapped across his shoulder (Kain had not noticed it in the dim light and the rapidity of the scuffle) and pitched it across the room, over Spyro's head and into the fire.

Spyro ducked and turned his head slightly; Kain saw his eyes go wide with some hidden horror, and in the brief instant in which his attention was distracted, Sefdomai vanished into the night. Spyro glared after him, but instead of pursuing, he bounded over to Kain, seized him wordlessly by the scruff of the neck, and carried him rather unceremoniously outside, finally putting him down several yards away from the hut.

"Sorry about that, Kain," he said in a hushed, weary voice; there was infinite sadness in his eyes; their fire had dimmed, replaced by the ordinary mild twinkle. "He's poisoned people before, and I worried that that thing he threw in the fire might've released some sort of gas…"

"You know that dragon?" asked Kain, utterly befuddled and weak from his fight; he managed to stagger to his feet. Spyro sat down tiredly and curled his tail neatly over his paws.

"Unfortunately, I do now…"

"What does that mean?" But Spyro did not answer: He had turned his gaze back to the hut; his purple eyes reflected the blue light of the moon with an eerie clarity, amplifying the horror stirring within their depths. Kain followed his mortified stare:

The little package that Sefdomai had thrown into the fire was a small clump of brittle-looking yellow rock, plainly visible even at this distance: The little frangible lump had splintered and simmered in the heart of the flames, and oozing out of it was a clear, gruesome red liquid, steaming as it was licked up by the fire.

_Like blood_, Kain thought, a chill creeping over him; he felt gripped by the same sensation he used to feel, in the days of Cynder, Terror of the Skies, when the apes' dreadwings had borne down upon him, bathing him in their shadows as they descended, blocking out the sun.

_ Like burning blood_.


	9. Booms of Thunder

**CHAPTER 9**

"Booms of Thunder"

Cynder gazed out the window of the northeastern wing of the Dragon Temple's immense, cavernous library, peering anxiously at the dark, rainy sky outside. It was just past midnight, and a clamorous storm had arisen not an hour or two before. _I hope Spyro's not flying home in this…_

Lucas sat at a table beside her, poring over a trio of voluminous books for some exam in a magic class that he had been telling her about for the past week — something about transmogrification, spells to change one's appearance… If she was honesty with herself, Cynder couldn't remember what the exam was on: She was, at the moment, too concerned about Spyro.

She had known that he would likely have taken a while at Munitions Forge, but he had left at dusk, and the daylight hours were lengthening this time of year; she would've expected him back well before midnight, and here it was, already almost an hour past…

_Where _is_ he?_ Powerful booms of thunder were echoing across the sky: The multitudinous candles that provided the majority of the light in the library trembled in its wake. The steady, sibilating, and almost sizzling sound of the rain filtered in through the window; Cynder felt her face caressed by the mist that it threw up from the ledge directly outside. She shivered and moved away, shuffling her paws worriedly.

"Mom?" Lucas asked, looking up blearily from his studies, "Are you okay?"

"Yes," she replied, a little taken aback, "Yes, I'm fine." Lucas looked at her confusedly, as though he were too tired to decide if he believed her or not; he returned to his books. Cynder pulled a book from one of the two shelves between which the table was situated, attempting to act as though she were reading — after all, that was the pretense that she had given her son for being there in the first place. She had thought that perhaps she would see Spyro coming from this window, since from it she could see a sliver of sky to the north of the Temple, but the storm had dashed her plan.

Just as she reread the first sentence of a random paragraph on a random page of the book for the umpteenth time, not a word of it registering in her brain, Keo walked around the corner.

"Oh, hey guys," the strapping Fire dragon said with a diamantine grin, "Just browsing around…"

"You, in a library?" asked Lucas with a smirk, glancing up from his books.

"Ha, ha, ha," Keo pretended to laugh; he slid over to the bookcase from which Cynder had taken her book, at which he stole a glance. He paused: "Um…Cynder? Are you very interested in 'draconic venereal physiology'?"

"What? Oh heavens!" She slammed the book shut, finally reading the sentence at which she had been staring blankly for the past five minutes. "Uh, no, I, uh…uh…"

"Just pulled a random book for a read?" Keo offered helpfully, "I've done that lots of times: Once, I was looking for a book on combustion — I ended up picking the book next to it, which happened to concern the migrating habits of swamp birds…I still have no idea why those were on the same shelf…" He shook his head histrionically at the egregiousness of it all and then returned to his perusal.

Cynder was grateful that he covered her faux pas; she quietly slipped the book back into its place and returned to the window. Keo hummed softly to himself as he selected a book of his own, sat down opposite Lucas, and began thumbing unobtrusively through the pages.

After a while, Lucas sighed and closed his books. "I can't study this anymore," he announced exhaustedly, "I'm done."

"What is it?" asked Keo, still skimming his own book.

"Transmogrification and identity concealment magic."

"Ick," pronounced Keo, looking up and making an appropriately displeased face, as though he tasted something foul, "I remember doing that stuff myself. You just gotta force yourself through it, kid…"

"Yeah, well," muttered Lucas, "I'm done for tonight. I'm going to bed. G'night, mom, Keo." He moved to put the books away, but Keo stopped him.

"Don't worry about it, I'll get them."

"Thanks, Keo…"

"No prob." Lucas shuffled off, and Keo returned to his book; Cynder continued to watch the rain, still worrying that Spyro was in some sort of trouble.

Just then, a weird feeling came over her: a sort of gnawing, tingling feeling in the back of her mind, as though someone were softly, almost inaudibly whispering her name. After a few moments, she turned around abruptly, coming to a decision:

"I'll see you later, Keo." The Fire dragon looked up from his book and smiled.

"Sure. Good night, Cynder."

"Good night, Keo."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Cynder stalked the upper northern ramparts, sticking to those areas where she would be shielded from the rain; she simply paced, her anxious and seemingly pointless promenade punctuated by her frequent glances towards the stormy sky.

With the combination of the hour and the grisly weather, the night was nearly impenetrably dark. That and the now nearly constant rolls of thunder and the torrential sheets of rain made for a rather abysmal atmosphere, particularly since Cynder was already worried. _Where on Earth could Spyro be…?_

Just then, she heard, over the bellowing tempest, a sort of clattering sound; she turned and saw a shape veiled in rain, racing towards her, taking on a very familiar form…

Cynder gasped in complete surprise as Spyro flung his wings around her, clutching her as though some invisible monster might wrench her away at any moment. She could feel his chest heaving against hers, his breath coming in rapid, terrified gusts; his body was slick with water — it appeared that he had flown straight through the storm.

"Spyro — ? What the — ? What's going on? What's wrong?" Cynder could tell that something was not right: Spyro was trembling, and he kept tightening his embrace, pulling her more strongly against him, as though fearful that she would slip away. His breathing was too labored — flying in a storm was not that strenuous.

He pulled back just enough so that he could look her in the eye, keeping his wings quite firmly wrapped around her; his amethyst eyes were gleaming fearfully.

"Cynder," he managed to gasp between breaths, "I'm…I'm…"

"Slow down, Spyro!" she told him, relaxing into his embrace and wrapping her wings around his waist; maybe if he didn't feel like she were about to float off, he would calm down enough to tell her what on Earth was wrong. "What's going on?"

"Cynder…I…" Spyro spluttered, "I…I…" He didn't seem to be able to choke out the words; instead, he held her closer and kissed her straight on the mouth. Cynder reciprocated, utterly dumbfounded. When their lips broke apart, Spyro seemed a bit more tranquil; his grip slackened just a bit.

"What's wrong, Spyro?" Cynder asked him softly.

"I…" Spyro swallowed, took several breaths, and continued: "I went to Munitions Forge, and I confirmed that Exhumor had been murdered by the assassin who wants me dead, and I guessed that his next victim would be Kain, so I went to Tall Plains, and I just barely got there in time. I literally had to wrench that dragon off of him! I _saw_ him, Cynder, I _talked_ to him!" Spyro started to shake again; Cynder nuzzled his check gently to try and calm him down. _That can't be all_…

"What's got you so upset, though?" Spyro took several more deep breaths before answering:

"I…He told me that my trials weren't over yet, that he wasn't through with me, and that I had only felt a fraction of the pain he meant to cause me; he got away before I could chase him, I had to check Kain – I thought he was injured – and all I could think of was you and Arial and Lucas and Rose, and…and…" Spyro's voice failed him; he gulped and shuddered and held her just a little closer.

"Shh…Spyro, it's okay," Cynder assured him gently, looking him straight in the eye, "I'm fine; Arial's doing a rotation in the psych ward; I just saw Lucas go to bed — in the dorms with the other students, along with Rose, who's been there for hours already; everything is fine…" Spyro shuddered again and redoubled his grip on her.

"I just…" he murmured, visible relief – and weariness – breaking across his face, "I've never been that scared since — "

"I know," Cynder interrupted softly, touching his nose with hers; she kissed him gently, and the contact seemed to calm him. "I know," she repeated in a whisper, "It's okay, Spyro." Spyro nodded, closing his eyes and bowing his head; he seemed to be trying to compose himself: His shaking had diminished considerably.

"Yeah…yeah… Thanks," he managed to mutter, "I just can't tell you how relieved I was when I saw you standing there — but then I got worried because I wondered why you were just walking around out here in the storm, and I…well, I'm just glad you guys are all safe." He kissed her again, this time more mildly, and when they broke apart this time, he was smiling slightly.

"Tell me something, though, Spyro."

"Hmm…?"

"…Can we get out of this rain?"

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Spyro paced in front of the balcony, continually glancing at the turbulent sky outside, though he knew not why: It was too dark to discern much of anything, and even if he could, what would be the point? What would be in the clouds? Still he paced, and he looked.

"Spyro, you need to get some sleep," Cynder pleaded for the third time since they'd gotten back to the chamber, "You've been up and traveling all night, and it hasn't exactly been an easy day…"

"I'm not sure I can," he told her honestly, shaking his head, "I'm just too…" He trailed off, unsure of how to complete the sentence; he could not conjure an adjective that would adequately express the electric sort of sensation trilling through him. It was like an adrenaline rush…mixed with mortal terror.

"I know," said Cynder sympathetically, crossing over and barring his path, forcing him to pause in his promenade, "but there's not much else to do tonight, and you need to rest." Spyro sighed.

"Yeah…yeah, I know…"

"Look," Cynder said matter-of-factly, "if you think that this assassin — "

"Sefdomai!" Spyro interrupted, suddenly wide-eyed, "That was what Kain said his name was! Sefdomai!"

"Okay, Sefdomai," whispered Cynder soothingly, "If you think that Sefdomai really is going to attempt something on Arial or the others, why don't you get some rest and go talk to Marius first thing in the morning? He might know something useful, and you've certainly got some information for him either way." Spyro stared at her. _She's right_, he told himself. His tiredness crashed down on him just then like a tidal wave, or like the punishing winds outside: He sighed again.

"Okay, I'll do that…" Cynder smiled and hugged him; just as it had right before he'd left for Munitions Forge, the feeling of her wings wrapped around his shoulders, of her body pressed against his, of her warm breath tickling his cheek — they all soothed him; he closed his eyes, taking in her scent, letting its familiarity steady him.

"C'mon," she said softly after a moment, "Let's go lie down — away from this rain…" She led him farther back into the room away from the balcony and lay down; he followed suit, and she twined her tail around his. "Get some rest, Spyro," she said, laying her head down and closing her emerald eyes, "We can sort this out in the morning…"

"Yeah…g'night, Cynder…"

"Good night, Spyro…" Spyro lay his own head down, staring out at the sheets of rain still pouring down outside, barely visible as flashes of silver light as the moon's rays caught them briefly midair. It was an eerie sight when coupled with the nagging feeling that Spyro had in the pit of his stomach that Sefdomai was much closer than he thought.

_Cynder's right, though_, he thought. _I know a lot more now…sort of… I know his name, at least, and that oughta be enough for Marius to do some digging. Maybe he can find him, and until then, I'll stay here and watch over Arial and Lucas and Rose…and Cynder. I'll get Keo to help…yeah, that'll work…_ Spyro felt a little better with a plan at least inchoate in his mind; he closed his eyes, reflexively expanding his senses around him, searching…

He could sense Cynder next to him — not just the feel of her flank against his, not just the sound of her steady breathing as she slumbered; he could sense her very dreams, flitting around like shapeless gnats, like sparks thrown off of a dying fire. He checked: She wasn't having a nightmare.

He continued to sense farther out: He sought out Arial in the psych ward, which wasn't far from their chamber; he found her, roaming from patient to patient, her mind untroubled, her heart burdened only for the ailing.

He sensed Lucas, dead asleep in the dorm with three of his fellow students; he could detect apprehensive thoughts concerning some transmogrification exam shooting through his dormant brain…

He found Rose, also asleep in her dorm, just down the hall from and a floor below her parents' room; her mind was utterly undisturbed, its tranquility – like the surface of a placid lake – unmarred by even the slightest ripple. Spyro felt himself smile as he continued…

_Keo?_ He detected the Fire dragon three floors above, almost directly above the chamber, moving in a seemingly aimless pattern along the battlements. His mind was like a web of lightning, thoughts shooting about left and right — Spyro could hardly make sense of any of it. He appeared…concerned? Conflicted? _That's it, conflicted_. About what?

Spyro tried to probe Keo's thoughts, but they were too spasmodic, and they fled from his inspection. Spyro shook his head and brought his senses back to his own body, feeling as he always did, a sensation like unto that of emerging from deep water.

_I wonder what Keo's upset about?_ Keo was a highly impassioned dragon, but he wasn't usually _that_ perturbed. Spyro wanted to ponder it further, but sleep was overtaking him: He could feel his thoughts blurring together, fading away into some fog into which he was slowly sinking himself.

_I guess it can wait till morning_…

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"What is this about, officer?" asked the dragon worriedly as he and Scabré stepped under an awning out of the rain.

"I am Inspector Scabré from the Vunoire Royal Police. I am here to ask you a few questions about the robbery that occurred here six days ago." The dragon looked at him quizzically.

"I already spoke to the police here about that, inspector, and I do not understand why Vunoire should be involved in a larceny case in Pueris — "

"We suspect that there may be ties to smuggling operations," Scabré countered swiftly. It was partially the truth: He _did_ suspect that the perpetrator of the larceny was indeed connected to smugglers. Of course, he also knew him to be a serial murderer…

"How can I help you then, detective?"

"Well, I have already acquired most of the details from the Pueris Police Department, but what I would like to know from you as a primary witness is if there was anything about this robbery that struck you as odd."

"Odd?"

"Odd, out of place, peculiar — anything that caught your attention."

"Hmm…" The dragon turned his gaze pensively to the bleak, gray sky from which the light rain was falling; the occasional boom of thunder punctuated the stillness of the early morning. It really was a grim, unpleasant day, Scabré thought.

"Well, there was one thing…"

"Yes?"

"It was strange that the thief took only sulfuric acid, fluorite, and sylvite: They're stored in separate rooms, and to get to them the thief would've had to have walked right past several much more valuable items."

"Such as?"

"Well, we had a shipment of diamonds sitting just inside the door; there was a case of liquefied polyisobutylene — we use it to make butyl rubber in the gas masks, but it's also a binding agent in plastic explosives: It could have a lot of worth on the black market. The thief walked right past it. Come to think of it," the dragon said suddenly, "there was a huge vat of hydrogen peroxide in one room, and that stuff has a million and one uses; sell it to the right people, and…well…" He shrugged, as if Scabré were to fill in the blank with some fabulous result of pirating hydrogen peroxide.

"And the thief ignored all of these potentially lucrative substances?" asked Scabré.

"Yes. I mean, sulfuric acid's pretty valuable too, but _diamonds_ — they were uncut, too, since they hadn't yet been processed; if he'd taken those, he would've gotten clean away. He could've just pocketed some and nobody would've been any the wiser until a few days later when we finally got to them."

"And you are certain that the acid, the sylvite, and the fluorite were the only things stolen?"

"Positive."

"Very well, I think you have been quite helpful. Thank you for your cooperation."

"If you say so," the dragon said with a shrug. He stepped out from the under the awning into the rain and hurried off to wherever it was that he needed to go. Scabré departed more slowly, ignoring the pluvial nuisance. He headed in practically the opposite direction as the dragon who had been "quite helpful," towards an alley on the far side of the mineral processing plant.

In truth, the dragon had not been much help at all: Practically all of those details were either explicitly stated in or inferable from the Pueris PD's files on the case, which was still under investigation. At the very most, they simply confirmed in Scabré's mind that his assassin was responsible for the robbery — a fact which he had guessed to be true already.

So, all in all, he was no closer to finding the killer — not that he had expected to find him here in Pueris: He was here merely to chase down a few leads. Still, it was frustrating to run up against so many barriers…

_Well, perhaps it is not a total loss: We may be able to track down those chemicals — particularly the polyisobutylene_. Chemical compounds – either themselves dangerous or connected to those that were – were often tagged with markers that enabled them to be traced to specific industries. _That may work_…

Scabré turned into his destination: a wet, dismal alley that looked like the kind of place all too often frequented by those shady characters whose duty it was for him to arrest. A single dragon was there: a nondescript, dusky-looking dragon who looked all too pleased with himself — one might have thought, to look at him, that he was enjoying a sunlit walk in a bountifully flowered park at sunset.

"Conbarde, what do you have for me?" The dragon grinned boyishly at him.

"Ah, Officer Scabré, good day to you!"

"Never mind about the day for me," said Scabré somewhat testily, "what about the day in the smuggling circles?" His contact simply grinned more broadly.

"Not one for pleasantries, are you? Well, there is a lot of scuttlebutt goin' around about some sort of bigwig strutting his stuff in front of the crime bosses, but hey, you know how rumors are…"

"Ah, but you've read my mind, Conbarde, that is precisely what I want to discuss: This hotshot, what do you know about him?" Conbarde shrugged quite insouciantly.

"Not too much — just that he's not smuggler or a gangster. Somebody much, much bigger…"

"How big?"

"Who can tell in this business? Smugglers hear a lotta gossip, Scabré, but it's just that — gossip. I can't tell you what's fact from fiction, and all I've got right now is whispers…"

"All right — any idea what this guy is? If he's not a gang leader or a smuggling boss, what's his racket?"

"I'm not certain," replied Conbarde darkly, dropping his voice, "but one of your deeper contacts knows a lot more than I do…" He reached into a bag and pulled out a sealed folder — like the kind that Scabré knew to be used to store and index classified documents. There were a few at the Royal Police Headquarters in Vunoire.

"What is this?" he asked, taking the folder, "Written communication? Blast, I've _told_ them a million times not to do this — it's a severe security risk — "

"Believe me, Officer," Conbarde said grimly, "He had no choice: His cover was blown two days ago, and he just managed to get that passed off to me before they caught up with him." Scabré paused.

"What was it?"

"I dunno — I suppose it'll be in whatever's in that folder." Scabré stared at the folder in question: It was plain and totally unremarkable, yet someone had suffered grievously – probably died – to bring it to him. That always sobered him.

"One last question," he said after a moment, "Do you know anything about the larceny that occurred here recently?"

"Just that some of the polyisobutylene that they swiped ended up in the hulls of our runners, headed for the mainland; the rest was dispersed to various gangs — might wanna put out a BOLO for that ordnance…"

"I'll do that, Conbarde. You should get going."

"Sure thing, Officer…" Conbarde started to saunter away towards the opposite end of the alley when Scabré spoke:

"Oh, and…Inspector Autre?" The dragon turned and grinned slyly. "Do watch yourself, won't you?"

"Certainly, Inspector…" Giving Scabré a respectful nod, he departed with the same casual air in which Scabré had first discovered him in the alley. Scabré smirked. Autre was green, but he was a good officer…and one of Scabré's best contacts in the smuggling world. _Now, what is in this envelope…_? He moved under an awning out of the rain, slit the seal that marked its integrity, opened it, and pulled out what appeared to be a hastily scrawled missive.

_He did not even use code_, Scabré noticed distastefully; then he paused. This was far more serious than he had thought:

_My Friend,_

_ By the time that you read this, I will likely be dead — exactly how is a question I care not to ponder. There are several data of which I must apprise you; take heed and transmit this message directly to our friends. I know not what will be the best course of action — I leave that to you…posthumously…_

_ Firstly, you are undoubtedly very cognizant of the string of murders that has been plaguing Vunoire for the past two months; I can tell you that the killings actually date one more month back, beginning in Pueris — you will certainly be able to discern them. I can also inform you of the killer's name: Lozh. _

_ Secondly, I also know that this Lozh hails from the mainland, specifically from the glacial regions north of the Enchanted Forest. I do not know much about him other than this — and that he has connections to criminals there. _

_ This leads me to the crux of this missive…and the datum for which I lay down my life: This Lozh has been effecting his murders – and his machinations with regard to the smuggling and gang underworlds (of the latter of which I am sure that you are aware) – at the behest or perhaps simply by way of a criminal syndicate based somewhere on the mainland — an organization known as the Raven's Wing._

_ I must go, I am out of time — but that is all that I can tell you of much consequence. I trust that you can do with this information something worthy of the price that I will soon pay for its conveyance. I bid you a fond farewell, my friend. There is no time for protracted, bittersweet valediction._

amīcus tuus_,_

moribundus

Scabré stared at the letter, so spontaneously yet neatly written. His brain would not function. He could not comprehend the words before him. Could it be true…?

_Yes_, he told himself harshly, _an agent of the law is dead. He died to send _me_ this letter, this information_. He forced himself to think, to push away the thought of this agent – who had been a very good friend of his – who had paid the ultimate price to send him this insignificant scrap of paper.

_…"the crux of this missive"…is that this "Lozh" is working for a mainland organization called the Raven's Wing? What's so important about that?_ He considered for a moment: He already knew that the killer – whom he could now name Lozh – had serious connections in the criminal underworld; from Conbarde he knew that Lozh was neither gangster nor smuggler; and now from his friend (_posthumously_, Scabré thought bitterly) he knew that these connections were traceable to a syndicate: the Raven's Wing.

The Raven's Wing…what could be their purpose? What could they possibly seek to gain by these diffuse and seemingly unrelated murders? King Parcel, obviously, was a key sociopolitical figure, and his death would certainly have struck a heavy blow to the straitlaced judicial system of Juzgara, but…

_What could they want with that? If their organization is based on the mainland, what would they glean from unrest in the North Isles?_ Certainly criminal organizations profited from turmoil – to a certain extent – but if the criminal organ in question had no chapters in the North Isles, disturbances there at best would only be of oblique benefit.

Moreover, despite the defeat of the Dark Master and the reestablishment of the Dragon Army as a powerful political structure, the mainland was still largely a wasteland in terms of social order. The Enchanted Forest and the vast majority of the territories surrounding it were desolate — perfect for such organizations, so long as they could find venues for their contraband…

_…like countries such as Vunoire_, Scabré thought suddenly, _where the judicial system is grossly deficient. Or in Juzgara…if you throw them into confusion by assassinating the king_... If the sociopolitical unrest resulting from the murders was indeed the object – in order to augment the syndicate's profiteering – what might be this Lozh's next target? _Another key figure of justice_, was the immediate answer. _But _who? Chiefs of police, judges, high-ranking political officials —

Scabré stopped, feeling, in spite of his stalwart sense of detachment, an icy sensation of something that he could most nearly define as horror creep over him, a singularly loud boom of thunder rending the skies. Who was the biggest figure of sociopolitical justice in the new world order? Easy: The very dragon who had ushered in that new world order:

_Spyro._

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Felador was angry. He was still bleeding from the light wound he had received by Spyro's hand the previous night; he suspected from the dark color of the blood that his liver had been nicked. He had patched himself up as best as he had been able as soon as he had gotten the chance after so narrowly escaping the purple dragon's fury; but he was not a medic: It had stopped bleeding until about an hour ago, when a fine trickle of deep red liquid had begun to ooze out of the gash mark.

"You need to have that looked at," said Sortolo quietly, as though reading his mind.

"Later," Felador snarled.

"How did this happen?" asked Sortolo whiningly, "How — ?"

"Spyro is sharper than I presumed him to be," Felador growled, too angry and impatient to suffer Sortolo's moronic questions, "I knew that he was quite close to discovering me, and I had even planned for the contingency of meeting him on Tall Plains, but I overlooked the possibility that he should intervene _before_ I managed to kill the Attlawan…"

"He caught you off-guard?" Sortolo asked stupidly.

"Well, no, you _fool_ — I got this gash pricking myself on a rosebush!" Felador roared. Sortolo flinched…but budged no further.

"I think we should abort this operation," he suggested somberly, "Or put someone else in the field instead of you — " Felador moved so quickly that Sortolo stopped speaking, his eyes dilating in shock: In an instant Felador was at his throat, breathing defiantly into his face, glaring into his muddy blue eyes.

"Don't — you — _dare_," he hissed, "think of removing me from this operation!" He stared Sortolo down for a tense moment or two, and then he backed away, still glaring. "The mission is not jeopardized," he said flatly, "Spyro may be aware of my identity, but he does not know who my next victim will be."

"You're going to go through with that, then?" Sortolo asked with a shudder, "It's quite a gruesome — "

"I thought that we had agreed that you would have nothing to do with my methods," Felador cut across him imperiously.

"Well, yes, but — "

"Then leave it," he said dangerously.

"…Very well, but this is becoming a hazard to the integrity of my organization! Surely by now they have identified at whose behest you are murdering these individuals — even if that behest is purely nominal," Sortolo added almost caustically, "What if they manage to pinpoint our location? Or that Avalaran — he has undoubtedly passed off the word of our forging operations: What if the Dragon Army should discern our plans? What if — ?"

"We can spend all day fantasizing about what _might_ be _if_ the Dragon Army is wise to our endeavors," Felador sneered, "Then again, we could just as easily push on in pursuit of those endeavors." He took a moment to calm down so that he would not rip this idiot's head off; when he continued, his voice was much more peaceable: "The Dragon Army has nothing but jumbled up facts. So long as we keep the important information in the dark, they will continue to know more while simultaneously knowing nothing."

"Felador, common sense dictates that that kind of plan cannot hold water indefinitely!" _Look who's talking about common sense_, Felador thought disgustedly. _Still, the urchin _is_ right_…

"That is why I am accelerating my plans. I assure you, Sortolo," Felador growled, "Spyro will be dead by next week. Now, if you will excuse me, I have work to do." He turned and whisked out of the room, heading first to a doctor to have his wound treated, and then off on his mission of death.

A smile began to play on his lips as he stepped out into the rain, a boom of thunder splitting the dark sky like a clarion call.


	10. The Raven's Lightning

**CHAPTER 10**

"The Raven's Lightning"

Spyro felt himself spinning through a fog of shadows, enshrouded in wisps of blackest black; a blizzard of caliginous feathers plumed before him, and he fought to get away as the feathers suddenly became like daggers and darted towards him as though possessed. He felt himself fall through some unseen aperture into a sea of darkness, and suddenly it was cold, horribly, horribly cold —

What felt like hours later, Spyro awoke, slowly and dazedly, everything around him sharp and sunlit, but what he first registered was that he was inexpressibly warm: a deep, enveloping warmth that made him want to fall back asleep.

Someone had draped a soft, thick blanket over him during the night – likely Cynder, who was nestled up against him – and, judging from the comfortable, natural feel of the fabric against his body, it had been there a while.

"Oh, you're awake," said Cynder; from the light, crisp sound of her voice, she had been awake for a while, too. "You started shivering during the night," she added gently, nodding at the blanket, "so I got that for you." _She got up in the middle of the night…and I didn't even notice? Wow, I _must_ be off_… Spyro thought tiredly.

"Thanks," he muttered, managing to give her a little smile. He glanced around; the clear, sharp light struck him as odd. "What time is it?"

"Around noon," Cynder said quietly.

"_What_?" Spyro yelped, his smile vanishing, his heart jumping, "Cynder, I was gonna go see Marius first thing this morning — why didn't you wake me?" Cynder simply smiled at him, utterly tranquil.

"You were exhausted, Spyro," she said, "Still are, from the look of it; you needed the rest, and besides, I checked: Marius was in meetings until a half hour ago." Spyro sighed.

"Sorry…I didn't mean to sound — "

"It's fine, Spyro," Cynder assured him, "Although honestly, I wish you'd get a little more sleep." It was then that the memory of his dream returned to him quite vividly; he had to repress a shudder.

"No…no, I don't think so…"

"Okay, well I want you to go with me to lunch with Lucas."

"What? Cynder, I've gotta go talk to Marius — "

"He'll still be there in an hour," she cut across him gently, "and you could definitely use something to eat — you haven't eaten in over twelve hours." As if to corroborate her point, Spyro felt – and heard – his stomach growl against his will; he blushed, and Cynder half grinned, half smirked; her eyes laughed.

"I guess you're right…" Spyro muttered.

"C'mon, it'll do you some good…"

— — — — — *** — — — — —

As Spyro walked towards Captain Marius's office, about an hour later, he had to admit to himself that he did indeed feel better — he was even managing to smile a little. He had succeeded in putting the assassin Sefdomai out of his mind long enough to enjoy the meal with Cynder and their son — still, he suspected that his anxiety had been visible. Luckily, Lucas wasn't usually the most perceptive of dragons…

But now that his mind was no longer so engaged, the creeping worries that had been swarming about in his brain were returning like a torrent of raindrops; by the time he arrived at Marius's door, which was closed, his smile was decidedly forced.

"Is the captain available, Lieutenant?" he asked the secretary seated at a desk nearby; she looked up and appeared startled by his sudden presence and meekly courteous tone.

"Y-Yes sir — well, sir, he is meeting with Lieutenant Katadioka, sir, but obviously you have clearance — sir," she added hastily, as though fearing that she had not lavished him with sufficient honorifics.

"Thank you, Lieutenant," he replied gracefully, ignoring her stumbling; he moved to the door, knocked firmly, waited a moment, and then entered. Marius stood near the window – sealed with soundproof glass – his golden, avian eyes fixed on the entrant; a dragon who must have been Lieutenant Katadioka stood a few feet away in the corner.

"Excuse me for interrupting, Captain," said Spyro quietly, barely able to maintain his smile anymore, "but I need to speak with you…immediately."

"Of course, sir," replied Marius almost immediately, apparently catching the direness of his tone. "Lieutenant," he said to Katadioka, "we can resume this later. You are dismissed."

"Yes sir," replied the officer crisply, adding a flourishing salute to Spyro before striding out of the room. Marius crossed to the door and sealed it.

"I presume, sir, that you would not wish to be overheard," he said gravely.

"You presume correct, Captain," said Spyro grimly, "I have a lot to tell you…" Tell him he did: He spilled everything, and by the time that he was done, much of his willpower was going into holding back panic from his voice. He knew that Marius could sense it, though; the intelligence officer had that penetrative, pensive look that so often characterized his aquiline eyes.

"I don't know what to do, Marius," Spyro confessed, just barely keeping his voice from quavering, "He's coming for us, and I can't stop him."

"Well," said Marius calmly, looking him squarely in the eye, "our first priority should be to determine who precisely his next victim will be. Trying to protect everyone associated with you would be infeasible — "

"But we have no idea who he'll target next!" Spyro almost whined; the instant the words left his mouth he knew what the answer would be:

"True, sir, but we know his MO, and we now know more about his objectives. His principle goal is to make you suffer – judging from what he told you on Tall Plains – and we already know that his victims follow a pattern of increasing relation to you. So, his next target will be someone within your close circle of friends."

"Kain was – _is_ – a friend," Spyro mumbled.

"Yes," Marius muttered, apparently deep in thought, "but your friendship with Kain was nascent, was it not, sir? You and Kain were distant…_compatriots_ until the Dark War, when you were brought together by a realization of a kinship of spirit. Kain was on the threshold of your inner circle, so whoever is next will be inside…"

"I'm not even sure that I _have_ an inner circle!" Spyro said, almost feverish, "I really don't have _that_ many close, close friends…"

"Let's start with the obvious, then," suggested Marius matter-of-factly, "Your family will certainly be a prime target, but I do not think that any of them will be immediately next — there is too great a gap between them and Kain in terms of their relationship with you. For the moment, I think that they are safe — "

"Keo!" yelped Spyro suddenly, remembering the task with which he had entrusted his best friend, "What about Keo? We've been close for years…"

"Yes, I think that Keo could be a potential target, but again, there is too great a discrepancy between him and Kain. Moreover," Marius added somberly, "Keo doesn't much look like a victim — come to think of it, all of Sefdomai's victims have been weaker than he, if only by race. Kain was tough, but no Attlawan that ever lived could stand up against a dragon like that. Manweersmalls – and Zetch – obviously could not have done so either."

"So you think that he'll target some other race before he switches to my dragon associates?" Spyro asked, hopeful: If it were true, it would narrow down the prospect list considerably.

"Yes, I believe so; they will make easier targets, and you would know them less well, being separated by the ethnic barrier. So — " Just then, a knock came at the door. "Yes?" snapped Marius, apparently irritated by the interruption; Spyro had never seen him irritated before.

"S-Sir?" came the secretary's voice as she opened the door by a minuscule sliver, "There is someone out here requesting to see you."

"I am in a meeting, Lieutenant," growled Marius rather dangerously.

"Y-Yes sir, but he is insistent — "

"Did you apprise him of the import of this meeting?"

"Yes sir, but he still insists. He says that what he must discuss with you is related."

"Who is this petitioner?"

"He says that he knows you, sir — an Inspector…" There was a moment of silence in which a hushed whisper indicated that the lieutenant was verifying the visitor's name. "…Inspector Scabré from the Vunoire Royal Police." Spyro looked at Marius: The intelligence officer appeared mildly surprised, a strangely suspicious look creeping into his eyes.

"Yes, I know an Inspector Scabré. Instruct him to wait one moment, Lieutenant."

"Yes sir…" The door closed. Marius turned to Spyro.

"I met Inspector Scabré in Vunoire once we liberated it from the control of the Dark Armies. I helped him and several others to coordinate a massive pacification program. Decades and decades ago, he was a soldier in the Vunoire Royal Guard. He is a first-rate police officer…would make a fantastic intelligence officer," he added, "He's a bit cold, but if he's here, wanting to talk to me – and he's probably guessed who's in here with me, sir – then it is bound to be highly important."

"Then I guess we ought to let him in," Spyro remarked, mildly amused at this unexpected situation. He was feeling much better now that the potential list of victims had been shrunk somewhat. Marius nodded, crossed to the door, and opened the door:

"Lieutenant, you may see him in."

"Yes sir." A dragon entered, a dragon of truly inconspicuous appearance, except for his eyes: sharp blue eyes that glittered like sapphires deep within the blackest depths of a cold, dark cave. Marius sealed the door, and the dragon saluted him, turned to Spyro, and gave a rather magnificent, obsequious bow.

"My liege," he murmured in grand subservience, "I am Inspector Scabré — at your service."

"As you were, Inspector," replied Spyro. The officer straightened crisply and assumed a rigid _at ease_ posture.

"I am most sorry for this egregious breach of decorum," the dragon continued, "but there is much that I have to tell you."

"There are ways of arranging a transfer of information," Marius noted neutrally, "Why this sudden appearance? And why my door, Scabré? I am not an MP."

"No sir, you are not…but you are the only one in your intelligence service that I know…and therefore trust."

"What is this about, Inspector?" asked Spyro quietly.

"My liege," replied Scabré, dropping his eyes as per Vunoire code when addressing a monarch or the equivalent thereof, "I have reason to suspect that you may be the target of a prospective assassination plot." Spyro's heart skipped a beat; he blinked, not initially registering what the officer had said. _How could _he_ know_?

He looked at Marius, who appeared equally surprised…and the suspicion in his eyes was growing every second. The intelligence officer gave him an unsure look, as if to say, _Up to you_.

"Explain, please, Inspector," Spyro said in an even tone.

"Yes, my liege: For the past two months, a string of seemingly random murders nonetheless indisputably perpetrated by the same individual has wracked Vunoire, causing much upset in the sociopolitical reformist wing. One key member of their party was among the recent victims: The plot to kill him involved the use of an accomplice, who, until yesterday evening, was in our custody in Vunoire. The assassin murdered him, along with his sister, who provided us with information.

"The means whereby the assassin killed them are similar to those whereby King Parcel of Juzgara was assassinated, and I strongly suspect that the dragon I am pursuing is the perpetrator of that crime as well. I tracked him through his connections in the criminal underworld to the port of Pueris, where I learned that one of my informants had been murdered – his cover blown – just after he managed to pass off a letter to me by way of a second informant. Through this letter, he informed me that this assassin goes by the name of Lozh, and that his operational resources arise from a criminal syndicate here on the mainland: the Raven's Wing.

"An assassin under the employ of an organization based here operating in the North Isles is an ominous incongruity, and I suspect that the only possible motivation is to effect sociopolitical and judicial unrest expeditious to their illegal enterprises. To that end, my liege, I fear that the immense reforms that your governance has disseminated across the land from here to Warfang may have riled them against you as well, and that this assassin's ultimate goal may in fact be your death." Scabré paused; he had taken hardly a breath in his entire report, and he now ducked his head, awaiting Spyro's response.

Truthfully, Spyro had no idea how to answer Scabré's professed concerns: He was too overcome by surprise. How could a Vunoiran inspector know anything about this? It seemed almost that he knew more than they. _But _how…?

"What is it about the official channels that you distrust, Scabré?" asked Marius slowly, as though trying to make sense of things.

"Things in Vunoire are not precisely stable, Marius," the inspector replied carefully, "The fact that Lozh had access to a dragon in _our_ custody, his ability to assassinate the king of Juzgara, and the immense weight that he appears to have in the criminal underworld all lead me to suspect that he may have moles in various sociopolitical organizations." He paused and then added very delicately, "Perhaps even in yours."

That was a possibility that Spyro hadn't considered since this whole thing had begun. The evidence had seemed to indicate a lone wolf sort of killer, and Scabré's testimony appeared to corroborate that, but what if the Vunoiran officer was right? What if Lozh – who, Spyro had no doubt, was Sefdomai, both probably aliases – _did_ have spies in the Dragon Army?

_Focus on that later_, he told himself. _Address the issue at hand_… In that instant, he made a decision — a quick one, to be sure, but the situation was getting desperate…

"Inspector Scabré," he asked in a slow, highly deliberate tone, and casting Marius an almost stern glance, as though to advise that he not interfere or interrupt, "I'm going to ask you what will likely come off as a strange question, and I need you to answer it with the utmost honesty." Scabré looked confused, but he bowed with absolute submission and replied:

"As you say, my liege — that is the code upon which I have built my life." Spyro waited an appropriate moment before continuing:

"The chief of the Royal Police…do you trust him?"

"…M-My liege?"

"The chief of the Royal Police, your superior," repeated Spyro slowly, "Do you trust him?"

"Yes, my liege. I have known him for many a year."

"All right," Spyro murmured, his brain working furiously; he cast Marius another _Don't interrupt_ look and continued very, very seriously, "I do to. Now, I would like to request that you collaborate with us in tracking down this killer."

"It would be my honor, my liege," Scabré replied with obsequious earnestness.

"Captain," said Spyro, turning crisply to Marius, "I want you to dispatch a messenger to the Chief of Royal Police in Vunoire. Tell him that we became aware of Scabré's investigations and that we will be utilizing all of our resources to assist him in his effort, which, due to its sensitive nature, may require several days – even weeks – and which necessitates straitlaced secrecy. Tell him that he must not inform _anyone_ of the details of Scabré's whereabouts and activities, in particular of his connection to us. Understood?"

"It will be done, sir," replied Marius immediately.

"When you have done that, Captain, have the lieutenant escort Scabré to the dormitories nearby — he looks wearied from his travels, and I insist, Inspector," he added to Scabré, who was about to make a reflexive objection, "that you rest before we discuss this matter further. I want your mind fresh. When you are reenergized, we will read you into our investigations into the Raven's Wing." Scabré's eyes went wide, full of the surprise that Spyro had felt only a minute before; Spyro nodded to Marius, who strode to the door.

"This way, Scabré…" He led him outside, and Spyro could hear his brief word with the lieutenant, and then his steps receding as he went to find a messenger. Spyro crossed to the soundproof window and stared out:

The storm from the previous night had abated only somewhat, and rain was still cascading over the swamps and forests…just not sideways. The clouds were still a deep, ominous gray, and Spyro suspected that thunder was still rumbling through the heavens; as he watched, a sliver of lightning rent the uneven nubile curtain.

Scabré's arrival felt like a good sign — the first in the past few days. Maybe with his help, Marius would be able to track down Sefdomai – Lozh, whatever – before he could attempt to kill again.

That brought Spyro to the question on which hinged some as of yet unknown life: Who was that next victim? The list was narrowed down, surely, but to whom? If, as Marius thought likely, the assassin's target would be a member of some race other than that of dragons, whom did that leave as prospects? He suspected that the Manweersmalls and Attlawans were no longer figures in his plan, since they had already been targeted once.

There were certainly several other species with which he was associated and in which he had friends: the moles of Warfang (_maybe that artilleryman that Cynder and I saved all those years ago_…), the dragonflies that he knew from the swamp (Spyro ruled out Sparx, though — too immediately related to him), and —

The door opened, and Marius reentered, his expression blank.

"The messenger is on his way, sir, but the storm has apparently been succeeded by another, so he may be briefly retarded."

"Well, there's no rush on it anyway," Spyro muttered; he turned to Marius as the intelligence officer resealed the door. "Now, we were discussing the assassin's prospective choice of victim…"

"Yes — I must admit, sir…it totally slipped my mind for a moment…" Spyro smiled.

"Mine as well, Marius: I just got myself back on track."

"We had suggested the probability that the next target would be of a variant ethnicity, yes?"

"Yes, and I was just running through a list in my head…" Spyro left the window – the view of the storm was depressing and unsettling – and paced over by Marius's desk. As he reviewed the tentative list in his head, a piece of paper on the desk caught his eye, and he found himself reading a report…on forging activities in the Enchanted Forest?

That made him pause: Mysterious and inexplicable munitions forging had been what had drawn the Dragon Army into the Dark War in the first place, so Spyro had a sensitive spot for it. He paused in his pensive promenade and carefully read the entire report — it was, after all, addressed to him.

"Marius, what is this?" he asked finally, once he had finished: The report was not quite complete. Marius, who apparently had been deep in thought, looked quizzical.

"My report, sir?"

"Yes — a report on what?"

"A combination of what I discovered on my trip to Juzgara and a fascinating piece of intelligence that I received from Hunter only yester — only yesterday…" Marius's voice dwindled off as a mixture of horror and wonder flashed through his eyes like the lightning outside as the same epiphany shot through Spyro's brain. The answer to their question – the riddle of who next was slated to die – rose to both their lips as they simultaneously said:

"Hunter!"

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"My friend, my friend, it is such a pity that you should be so humiliated," Felador drawled, drawing exquisite delight from the twisted expression on the Avalaran's face as he struggled exhaustedly against the ropes that bound his wrists to the huge pole that sat in the midst of the village.

The other Avalarans sat restrained by the line of burly and mean-looking thugs that Felador had brought as his contemptible version of an entourage; the rain was falling quite thickly upon the village, which, despite the high noon sun, lay ensconced in tempestuous shadow.

_Perhaps it is granting this luckless Avalaran some reprieve from his wounds_, Felador wondered indifferently, glancing up at the torrential heavens.

"Although, I must say, my friend, that you alone amongst my victims have I admired."

"I am most honored," Hunter managed to snarl. Felador grinned wickedly, quite pleased with the defiance.

"Now, now, you ought to save your strength — perhaps your friends might attempt to rescue you," he gestured with a sweeping gesture with one paw at the spectator Avalarans, most of them physically restrained by ropes or shackles, some immobilized by wounds. Two lay dead near the gate that led out into the valley proper. "Then again," said Felador cloyingly, "perhaps not."

"If you do not mind," Hunter rasped, the greatest, most utter disdain filling his feline eyes, "I would prefer that we might get this distasteful business over with…I have nothing to say to you."

"Ah, but I require information," Felador lied, "As surely you are aware, the fracas you caused at our forging site has caught the attention of myself and my superiors, and I am sure that you would have passed on the intelligence to the Dragon Army. All I want to know is _what_ you told them." Hunter locked eyes with Felador and said in a voice that was full of hatred:

"Drop…dead."

"Not yet, my friend," sneered Felador lightly, "Not just yet. But your insolence — it miffs me, my friend. I'm afraid that you must expiate the transgression…" With the brisk, detached gait of a veteran of his trade, Felador approached Hunter, seized his right wrist, and bent it forcefully inward, causing the arm to curl back…but it had nowhere to go, bound as it was, so, with a sickening crack, the wrist bone snapped.

To his credit, Hunter barely flinched, and not a sound escaped his mouth, now wide as he panted in pain, his right hand slumped awkwardly.

"Not a murmur," Felador noted snidely, "I respect that, my friend. But you still must give me the information I seek — come, redeem yourself further…" Hunter did not move, but his eyes retained their venomous contempt. "No…? Well…" Without warning, as he passed in front of the Avalaran, his rear leg shot out and connected directly with Hunter's groin.

The proud warrior attempted to reflexively double over in the intense pain that shot through him, but the ropes held fast, and he was forced to breath in quick gusts; his eyes screwed up against the pain, yet he still managed not to emit a peep.

"I would call that impressive, as well," Felador sneered, "but the shock of that kind of blow is enough to silence anyone."

"As is," Hunter gasped defiantly, "the pathetic nature of your interrogation methods." Felador smiled more evilly than ever before.

"You are not _that_ important," he jeered in reply. "I do not _need_ you to divulge _anything_…should you irk me further," he added more dangerously, narrowing his eyes, "I may be tempted to end this little chat prematurely…"

"Please do not let me impede you," Hunter rejoined, managing – to even Felador's surprise – to smile weakly. Felador returned the smile.

"Perhaps I shan't…" Felador took one claw and placed it delicately on the Avalaran's left shoulder, opposite his broken wrist. Not best to concentrate too much pain in one spot… "But are you sure that you _really_ want to die by my hand, especially when succor may be so imminent?" On the word _succor_, he pushed with just enough force to pierce the skin by a few millimeters, procuring a rivulet of blood. Hunter did not blink.

"I…do not…fear…you," he said very carefully, his eyes expressing a valiant loathing that certainly belied the trembling in his body from the pain of his wounds.

"I do not doubt that," Felador whispered; he dug his claw unceremoniously deeper into his shoulder; the blood came faster now, dripping in great gouts that painted the already wet dirt red. Still Hunter did not flinch. Felador delved deeper, feeling his claw part muscle tissue, sever tendons, and eventually scrape the shoulder bone, whereupon Hunter could not help but twitch.

"Then again," Felador said abruptly, wrenching his claw free, liberating a burst of blood that swiftly subsided, and incurring an involuntary gasp from the victim, "I should like to know exactly what you told the Dragon Army. It would be most helpful to me, you see. If you tell me, perhaps I will allow you the slightest chance of survival…"

"What? A mendacious cur like you?" asked Hunter with as much savagery as his wounded state would allow.

"Incisive words," Felador sneered, "for one so _incised_!" He punctuated the final word with a slash to the face, raking the very tips of his claws across the Avalaran's nose, angling his blow so that he just nicked the canthi, causing blood to ooze up like scarlet cords. Felador laughed softly as Hunter spat blood on the ground in defiance. As Hunter blinked, blood trickled into his eye, and he was forced to bow his head to invoke the agency of gravity in removing it.

"Come now, Hunter, let us be reasonable," Felador hissed silkily, "Simply inform me as to what the Dragon Army suspects about our forging operations. Hunter smiled and began to actually _laugh_.

"Now you really must kill me, for I know nary a thing about that. I simply passed along word and left. I do not have the information you seek. It appears that you labored in making your little trip here for nothing."

"Oh no," said Felador in a quiet whisper more dangerous than any of the voices that he had employed thus far, "Oh no, no, no, no, no, my friend, you are mistaken there. I have a much _bigger_ plan for you…"

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Spyro raced up the trail towards the Avalaran village, Marius tailing straight behind him. He could feel his heart pulsing in his chest, blood pounding in his brain as feverish thoughts shot through his mind like flares of lightning.

Somehow the combination of the driving rain, dark sky, and horrible, deathly silence (apart from the storm) gave him a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach, and only one out of the plethora of thoughts chasing each other around in his head was coherent: _Please don't let Hunter be dead_…

The moment they reached the gate, Spyro's heart stopped: Two Avalarans lay dead there. Spyro leaped straight over them and bolted inside the village: A good two dozen Avalarans were visible, shuffling around in a mixture of exhaustion and perplexity, some wounded, others not. Spyro spotted Dmitri leaning up against a shack, holding a cloth against his head, and raced up to him.

"Dmitri! What's happened here?" Dmitri looked at him, evidently so fatigued that he was not even surprised that Spyro had shown up so suddenly and for no apparent reason.

"We…we have been attacked…they knocked me out…I don't know much else…" Just then Spyro registered that the cloth against the Avalaran's head was red with blood.

"Marius, see to Dmitri, will you?"

"I'm fine, Spyro," Dmitri objected.

"Do it anyway, please, Marius," said Spyro; for some inexplicable reason, he wanted to be alone, and he _had_ to find Hunter. He left the captain with Dmitri and walked off into the crowd, feeling as though he were in a dream of sorts, walking through a village of phantoms who neither knew nor saw him. The rain was still pouring down upon them all, but Spyro didn't care: He ignored the chill that it laid upon his scales, and he continued to press his way through the muddled Avalarans.

As he broke through to the other side of the crowd, the most gruesome sight met his eyes — worse than Zetch, worse than Exhumor, worse than the sight of Sefdomai standing over Kain, about to crush his spine with his teeth:

Hunter lay limp against the huge ceremonial pole that sat in the middle of the village, sporting obvious injuries: a broken right wrist, a puncture wound to the left shoulder, what appeared to be inguinal bruising, which region had been exposed for who knew what reason.

But that was not what so terrified him, what so caused him to sway on the spot, fighting the urge to vomit, to wail, to scream — all at the same time: Hunter's entire abdominal cavity had been eviscerated, the contents spilt upon the earth; Spyro could see the Avalaran's aorta at the back of the evacuated opening, slit and still dribbling blood, a huge pool of which sat festering upon the ground before the body, its morbid surface shattered by the bombardment of rain.

Hunter was dead, and Spyro knew that the horrible image before him would be engraved in his memory to the day that he joined his erstwhile companion…his friend.

Hunter, his friend…was dead.

_This can't be happening, this can't be happening_! Spyro had no idea what he was feeling — only a terrible, terrible trembling: His entire body was quaking before the ghastliness of it all.

_I failed…again. I failed, and Hunter is dead_.

Right there, in the middle of the Avalaran village, his friend's eviscerated and blood-drained corpse hanging before him against the pole, the Avalaran survivors drifting about him, the torrential rain blanketing the earth in its purgative waves, the sky split with lightning black as a raven's wing — Spyro dropped to the ground…

…and wept.


	11. Sparks Evanescent

**CHAPTER 11**

"Sparks Evanescent"

"Given who this is I elected to put a rush on the autopsy," said Arial quietly, pulling the sheet back from the upper half of Hunter's body. Keo thought that he looked all right for a guy who'd been rather grotesquely murdered and disemboweled in the middle of a rainstorm — a storm which continued to bombard the windows with a staccato rapping noise.

"So how'd he die?" asked Spyro numbly; Keo saw the sort of vacant look that so often came upon people who had lost a dear friend, once the initial shock wore off and the denial started to set in. Keo had heard Doctor Ambulo mutter something about the mind shutting itself down to cope with the trauma…

But Keo didn't know anything about that. He had never really suffered something like that, even though his mother had died before he ever knew her; he'd seen a lot of that kind of suffering in his soldiering experience, though, brief as it was. He had always observed it with a sort of uncomprehending but respectful aloofness. Spyro was his friend, though, so that made things a little harder to brush off…

"I would say exsanguination," replied Arial grimly, "There are multiple superficial wounds: ligature marks on the wrists that would have dug into the nerves without severing major blood vessels, so those would have caused a lot of pain without incurring any real damage; minor lacerations to the interior canthi of both eyes and to the nose, again annoying but certainly not lethal; and inguinal bruising suggestive of blunt force trauma — it would've hurt tremendously, but the amount of damage doesn't implicate lethal force." Arial paused a moment, and then continued in a very ginger tone:

"The abdominal cavity was eviscerated by slicing laterally across its upper and lower termini, just below the stomach and just above the seminal ducts; the longitudinal connective tissue was similarly severed, and the viscera were literally dug out of his body. Either in the process or directly after, an incision was made in the aorta approximately one point three centimeters in width and of sufficient depth to induce a violent hemorrhage. The shock of that wound – or the subsequent loss of tremendous volumes of blood – would most certainly have been lethal."

Keo saw Spyro shudder and duck his head; he sympathized for him: His friend had been heartlessly and brutally murdered, and he had been unable to stop the perpetrator. Keo could tell that Spyro had been hoping that the evisceration had been done postmortem, but that appeared to not be the case, especially since there were no other wounds on the body. _Of course, there're ways to kill somebody without leaving marks_… Keo thought darkly.

"I also finished Zetch's autopsy," Arial added gently.

"How'd he die?" murmured Spyro, as if in a trance.

"Shock: Severe blunt force trauma to the abdomen caused his spleen to rupture, severely damaged one kidney, and caused several small hemorrhages all at once. The shock of so much damage simultaneously caused his body to shut down. All of the other wounds were secondary…"

"How long before they died?" asked Spyro, his voice suddenly strong; his eyes blazed strangely. Arial blinked; Keo thought she was surprised by her father's abrupt intensity.

"What do you mean?" she asked quietly.

"How long did they live through the wounds — after the kill strike was delivered?" _Kill strike? That's a weird thing to say_… thought Keo; it was a very impersonal term. Apparently Arial thought so, too: She took a moment before answering.

"Hunter would have expired quickly from the rapid loss of blood, but Zetch's death would have been slower…and much more painful," she added gingerly, "He would have felt everything until the shock of the internal damage overloaded his brain."

"Okay…" Spyro muttered, much calmer now; the vacant look returned to his eyes, but Keo saw something else there, an almost cold, savage gleam that he had seen before. It was almost vengeful…

"I'm sorry, dad," Arial said suddenly, no longer speaking as a doctor, "I know Hunter was your friend…"

"Yeah…I'm sorry, too, kiddo… Thanks," he murmured suddenly, turning and leaving the autopsy suite. Keo exchanged a mystified glance with Arial before following quickly.

"Spyro — you okay?" Keo asked, catching up to his former mentor; they walked down the hall at a brisk pace. The rain pounded on the windows that lined the corridor as the sunset cast eerie, sepulchral shadows across the walls, punctuated by tongues of orange light. They had reached the end of the hallway and turned onto a tight, spiral staircase before Spyro replied:

"No, no I'm not, Keo." His voice was tired and frank. His gaze was fixed soulfully on the ground as he put one paw in front of another. The savage gleam was gone, replaced by nothing but inexpressible heartache…and something that resembled guilt.

"We'll figure this out, Spyro," Keo assured him in the gentlest tone that he could manage. Even as he said it, though, the issue made less and less sense: Who would want to kill an Avalaran in so brutal and obviously deliberate fashion? Only two other Avalarans had been killed, and that had been unintentional. Why had Hunter been targeted…?

_What does Zetch have to do with it?_ Keo wondered, remembering how Arial had reported both autopsies' results together. _Maybe the same guy did both_… a voice suggested. Keo glanced at Spyro: There was something in his eyes and in the almost sheepish look on his face that told Keo that he was hiding something; he knew more about this than he was letting on. Keo considered questioning him, but —

_No… If Spyro wants to tell me…he'll tell me when he wants to_. Keo had learned a long time ago that he could trust Spyro: If he kept secrets, there was a big reason for it. _I just hope you know what you're doin'_…

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"This is growing out of hand, Felador!" Sortolo cried, "The Avalaran's body was not even _cold_ by the time the Dragon Army swooped down on the scene! You — "

"It was hardly the entire Dragon Army," Felador cut across him with insolent insouciance, "It was two dragons, Spyro and the intelligence officer. They were unaccompanied, and they hardly knew what they were going to find."

"Still, I — " Sortolo paused, a suspicious light coming into his eyes. "How do you know that the second dragon was an intelligence officer…?" Felador grinned wickedly.

"I have my ways, Sortolo. You asked from the beginning not to be apprised of all of the details of my operations, so why should it surprise you that I have inside information from sources of whose existences you were unaware?"

"Fine, I will concede that point, but still you barely got away from that village with _five minutes_ to spare! What if you'd been caught? Your plan would hardly have been carried out with you dead…"

"That is why I brought guards," Felador replied simply, "Besides, Spyro needs to feel that he was unable to save Hunter because he lost those five minutes somewhere else. I do not want to be ten steps ahead of him — only a half-step, and if the risk that that entails is my life…so be it."

"But that is madness!"

"That is the game we play, Sortolo."

"The game _you_ play!" Felador cast him a dangerous look.

"You are in this game as well, Sortolo."

"Not anymore!" Sortolo declared with pathetically forced bravado, "I will not stand for these insane risks anymore! Your actions are beginning to threaten the integrity of my operations — believe it or not, Felador, there are actually other things that this organization does besides disbursing the matériel that you use for your 'missions' and catering to your every operational whim! I cannot be party to this anymore! I'm done!" Felador let him speak his peace; then, he moved with startling rapidity, seized Sortolo by the neck, and forced him to the ground.

"You are only done," he growled calmly, "when I say that you are done…or I will go over your head…before ripping it off!"

"But — "

"Enough!" Felador spat; he released Sortolo and headed for the door unceremoniously. "Only two victims remain; I only need you to maintain some semblance of courage for a few more days. Surely even _you_ are capable of meeting such a meagerly quota," he added contemptuously before walking out the door, slamming it on his way.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Keo shuffled awkwardly as Cynder hugged Spyro the moment that the two of them entered the room. He forced his gaze to roam the little dormitory, alighting on the shadowy rain drenching the balcony outside.

The sky was dark and foreboding, and even though the sun had yet to set, the heavens showed no light. The earth was better illuminated than the sky — something that never failed to creep Keo out. The rain was growing more and more intense, and little pockets of lightning occluded by the tenebrous clouds were causing the drops to flare into sparks of silver, quickly fading into the night like dying embers. Not a pleasant nightfall, to be sure…

Finally, Cynder released Spyro; her lovely emerald eyes shone with worry.

"Are you all right? I heard about Hunter. H — " She stopped suddenly, and Keo saw her eyes flicker very briefly towards him. "What happened?"

"Murdered," Spyro muttered briefly. Keo thought that he might as well have added _I'll tell you more later_. Keo could sense that he was intruding on what was likely to become a very private conversation…maybe an amorous one… _Spyro could use some luck about now_, Keo thought with a wry inward smirk.

"Well, I'll leave you guys alone," Keo said, in a voice full of ill-disguised innuendo, "Rest easy, guys."

"Yeah, take care, Keo," replied Cynder warmly.

"See you," Spyro muttered. The Fire dragon half grinned, half smirked at both of them, turned, and left. He made his way slowly down the single hallway that led out from the dormitory, a narrow corridor windowed on its west side, lit with torches on its east side. With the pounding of the rain on the windows and the deep shadows engulfing everything, Keo thought that the night boasted an interesting combination of creepiness and romance. His mind settled on the second: _Hmm…maybe I'll_ —

"Oh, hey, Sparx," he said, the appearance of the dragonfly bringing him out of his somewhat unchaste reverie. He had never really gotten to know Sparx, but they'd shared some friendly conversations before, so he said hi when he saw him.

"Hey, Keo." The two passed each other, and it took Keo a moment or two before he remembered:

"Oh, you might not wanna go in there — Spyro and Cynder're together, and, well…you know how they like to be alone."

"Ooooooh…" Sparx's voice trailed off knowingly, a look that was half sly, half revolted. "Well, I just wanted to tell Spyro that I'm headin' out to the swamp to see our parents."

"In _this_ weather?" Keo asked, flabbergasted.

"Well, not _now_ — the rain's supposed to lighten up in a few hours, and I always make this trip this time o' year."

"I don't think that they're gonna be available for a while," Keo remarked; given what he knew about how Sparx viewed Spyro and Cynder's relationship, he was glad that the dragonfly couldn't see his smirk in the shadows.

"Oh, well, will you tell 'em, then? I'd like to be off soon…"

"Sure thing."

"Thanks, man." Sparx changed direction, shot past Keo, and fluttered up the staircase at the other end of the hall, the yellow glow from his body receding into the darkness like the dying embers of lightning outside.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Cynder was glad that it was raining: It helped calm both her and Spyro, and solace was something that he at least desperately needed.

Cynder had hated rain until, all those years ago, at Hagia Falls – an isolated, idyllic sort of valley embedded somewhere in the remote northern mountains that bordered the Enchanted Forest on its eastern edge – they had been forced to spend over a month and a half in a cave before returning to the Temple to this very dormitory, and it had rained several times (there had even been a blizzard). Cynder had learnt to appreciate the isolated tranquility that came with a good rainstorm.

Nestled up against Spyro, the two of them bundled together in the same blanket that she had draped over him just this morning (_Has it really only been seven hours_…?), the darkness wreathed around them (Cynder wasn't sure if the sun had actually set yet — the shadows from the storm were sufficient, though), all extraneous sounds lost in that of the rain just a few feet away, Cynder could close her eyes and almost imagine that she was back at Hagia Falls — except that the situation was reversed: Now she was the caregiver, the healer, and Spyro was the one in need.

"You should rest, Spyro," she whispered to him. She could sense that he was not asleep as he was feigning to be. One amethyst eye opened.

"I only woke up seven hours ago…" he murmured.

"Still, it's been a…trying day," Cynder said, choosing her words carefully, "And you're not gonna figure this out tonight."

"I dunno if I'm gonna figure this out at all," Spyro half moaned, half whimpered. There was a profound terror in his eyes. Cynder hated to see that: With her past with the Dark Master and the things that she had seen and done, few things really scared her. One that did was the look in Spyro's eye: utter fear.

Cynder didn't know what else to do except stroke his cheek gently with her muzzle and whisper, "It'll be all right, Spyro."

"Will it?" he asked darkly, his voice trembling ever so slightly, "How many people are gonna have to die before we catch this guy?" Cynder had no answer.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"What are we missing?" demanded Marius irritably, tossing aside a batch of papers that he had just realized that he had scrutinized only half an hour ago. Scabré, who sat across from him, also sorting through the mountains of data, sighed blearily.

"I have no idea — if I knew that, we would not be missing it…"

"There must be an answer here," Marius growled, glaring at the various reports from the half dozen intelligence officers that he had in the field.

"I thought that you had an agent inside the Raven's Wing," Scabré muttered.

"I do, but he's only been in a week; they don't trust him nearly enough to give him the kind of information that we need."

"Does he at least know where they're based?" Scabré asked, beginning to grasp at straws.

"Not even close," Marius groaned disgruntledly, "From what he's told us thus far, the Raven's Wing keeps its headquarters disseminated across the forest, and only the highest members of the syndicate know where all of its bases can be found. So far, we know only a general area: the northern reaches of the Enchanted Forest…" Marius's voice trailed off; something had just popped into his head:

"Scabré…where did you put that letter? The one your burned informant passed to you?" Scabré looked around, dug into a mound of papers, and extracted the already worn missive.

"Here." Marius took the letter and examined, for he had only cursorily perused it the first time.

"…'_this Lozh hails from the mainland_…'" Marius read aloud, "…'_from the glacial regions north of the Enchanted Forest._' If Lozh, Sefdomai, or whoever this assassin is hails from the glacial plains to the north of the forest, perhaps the Raven's Wing is centered around the mountains that separate the two…" Marius crossed to a map that he had hung on the wall opposite the window; Scabré followed.

"How many places in those mountains would provide suitable bases?"

"Many," Marius answered in a deflated tone, "Those mountains are riddled with caves and tunnels…"

"Wait a minute," Scabré said suddenly, "The Avalaran that you said discovered a forging site — where was it?" Marius, following eagerly on Scabré's train of thought, moved swiftly to the desk, leafed through papers for a minute, and then returned to the map with Hunter's reconnaissance report:

"Right…_here_." He pointed with the tip of his claw at a spot about a third of the way along the mountain chain from the west, on the southern side.

"Directly opposite the glacial plains," Scabré noted interestedly.

"Yes, and there is a slight dip in elevation on the glacial side," Marius said almost excitedly, pointing out the swirling topographical lines on the map.

"An alcove in a mountain range might be a perfect place to start looking," Scabré suggested.

"Yes…" Before Marius could ponder the issue further, a knock came at the door. "Yes?" The door opened by a crack.

"Pardon the interruption, sir, but one of your agents is here requesting to see you." Marius glanced at Scabré, who shrugged.

"See him in, Lieutenant, and shut the door behind him."

"Yes sir…" The door opened wider, and a dragon stepped in, a young, nondescript one; the door shut behind him.

"Captain, sir, I — " He spotted Scabré and paused suspiciously.

"You may continue, Lieutenant," Marius assured him smoothly, "The Inspector here is read in."

"Yes sir: I have a report from your man on the inside, as well as one of my own." He passed Marius an envelope, which the latter placed on the desk amidst the other data.

"Continue, Lieutenant."

"Yes sir: À propos of your instructions to follow up on the indications of forging operations on the part of the Raven's Wing, I tracked several supply convoys – with the help of one of my informants – to a holding facility about here." The intelligence officer crossed to the map on the wall and placed his claw, to Marius's astonishment, directly over the dip across from the discovered forge site.

"They are being stored there until they can be shipped — from there, presumably to the North Isles, for purposes unknown… I have also heard rumors," he added, "that the Raven's Wing has explosives stored there as well, trafficked from Vunoire." Marius looked at Scabré, and he knew that the Vunoiran Inspector was thinking precisely the same thing.

"Thank you very much, Lieutenant, you may have just solved a very important riddle," Marius said with a cryptic smile, "For now, though, get back to your post." The lieutenant smiled boyishly:

"Yes sir!" He spun on his heels, strode briskly to the door, opened it, and exited, sealing the entrance behind him. Marius immediately rounded on Scabré:

"If there's a holding facility there, there may be more data concerning the exact location of the syndicate's base."

"It is the best lead we have, anyway, and even if it results in a dead end, we will still have decommissioned some of their operations," said Scabré wisely, "We have nothing to lose."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"Ma'am, may I interrupt?" Cynder looked up and saw Marius standing hesitantly in the doorway; she glanced at Spyro: She thought that he had been asleep, but apparently not, as his eyes were wide open, and even as she looked he was lifting his head in response to Marius's voice.

"I suppose so, Captain," she said somewhat ruefully; she would've rather had Spyro sleep a little, but it seemed obvious that Marius was here for him.

"What's up, Marius?" Spyro asked.

"A new development: Scabré and I have pooled our resources and, with a report brought in by one of my field officers just a moment ago, determined that the Raven's Wing has been routing the munitions from its forge – some of them at least – along with contraband from the North Isles, including explosives, to a holding facility in the west-central glacial regions, in a sort of valley hugging the mountains."

"Is Sefdomai there?" demanded Spyro, leaping to his feet, eyes wide and burning.

"Not that we know of, but a raid may give us information as to the actual location of the syndicate's base, and that will certainly give us a better chance of finding him."

"I'm going," Spyro declared immediately. Marius looked unsurprised, but Cynder was astonished:

"What!? But Spyro, what if this is a trap? What if it's some sort of ambush?"

"She has a point, sir," Marius agreed quietly, "It could be very dangerous — "

"I'm going," Spyro answered him icily, "This guy's not done with me yet — you said it yourself, my family will probably be his next target, and I will _not_ let that happen!" He turned to Cynder, and his voice and eyes softened: "I'm sorry, Cynder, but no one else is going to die because I can't get this guy." Cynder knew that there was no arguing with him.

"Get me a spec-ops team," Spyro commanded Marius, apparently taking Cynder's anxious silence as consent, "We're heading out _right now_."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

It had taken three hours, but Spyro had finally gotten an Emergency Response Special Operations Unit together and had with them trekked the long way to the glacial flatlands to the north of the Enchanted Forest.

It was a desolate place: nothing but wide, stark expanses of dull gray ice and snow, with the wind shrieking overhead like some sinister owl, the sky a deep shade of plumbean gray, rumbling with thunder and riddled with ribbons of lightning. At least it had stopped raining.

Spyro and his ERSOU perched on a narrow ledge overlooking a sort of crevice, a split in the wall of mountains, a fissure that formed a serpentine path towards the Enchanted Forest. About halfway through the mountain border, the fracture swelled into a tumorous ellipse in the center of which sat a large, blocky building nestled against the northern fold in the jagged but sheltering mountains.

"There's our holding facility," Spyro remarked gravely to the leader of the ERSOU, a Captain Polemos, a burly but mild-looking ice-blue dragon with eyes of a perfect shade of deep amaranth.

"Looks like three entrances," the captain noted, "One on each wall, minus the one hugging the mountains."

"You and your men split up and take the side entrances," Spyro ordered quietly, "I'll take the center." Captain Polemos looked at him neutrally.

"Sir, if I may speak candidly, that's a breach of SOP."

"I understand that, Captain, but we don't have the time for formalities here. I'll take the risk myself; you and your men go by the book."

"Yes sir."

"Get into position and be ready to move on my mark," Spyro commanded, "When I break in, you and your teams do the same. And watch yourselves in there — we may have explosives inside, no idea how touchy they might be."

"Yes sir," Captain Polemos repeated. He spun on his heels and whisked off to where his men were crouched in waiting. Spyro scanned the building again: _No windows — good. It's dark, too_. He glanced back and saw that the captain had readied the squad: They were standing by to follow his lead. _All right — let's find this monster_, Spyro thought, his mind settling into that practiced serenity that he always experienced in combat: He lifted his wings, signaled with his tail, and lifted off into the dark night.

Spyro soared in a high arc, cloaking himself against the backdrop of the tempestuous night skies, descending rapidly, folding his wings and then expanding them, and landing immediately next to the center door to the building. Glancing over his shoulder to the left, he saw Captain Polemos leading half of his team up to the western door; the other troopers would be converging on the eastern one.

Spyro examined the door: It was little more than a slab of metal set into a portal with hinges and a doorknob. There was no keyhole, but Spyro suspected that the door would be locked from the inside; he looked at the hinges: They were heavily oxidized from what had probably been years of unattended exposure to wind and water. This door would not take much force to remove.

Spyro closed his eyes and expanded his senses, feeling the room beyond the crude portal: There were three dragons in the room, moving about in a slow, inspective fashion; they appeared to be taking an inventory of sort… The room was full of boxes and crates, except for a center aisle directly connecting this door with one opposite it.

Expanding his perception a little farther, Spyro could detect more dragons throughout the building, but not many; perhaps they were short-staffed tonight…? _No matter_, Spyro thought. _The captain and his men are waiting: Let's do this_.

Spyro stepped back from the door, took a deep breath, and launched a blast of shimmering, green seismic energy straight at it: With an immense _BANG_ that rocked the very building itself, the door was wrenched violently from its hinges, fractured in a spidery web of cracks radiating from its center, and blown inward with incredible force, shooting across the room and slamming into the opposite door with enough remaining impetus to shatter that one as well.

Spyro entered calmly through the doorway (which was clogged with dust that his attack had loosened) just as the three dragons turned: The first died with an ice bolt through his left eye, the second from a bolt of lightning to his chest; the third attempted to resist, but he ended up dead on the floor, his lifeblood pouring from a gash in his neck.

Spyro stepped straight through the next door, hearing muffled bangs as Captain Polemos and his squad breached the side entrances; he found himself in a large storage space that was largely empty, save for a couple of dragons whom Spyro swiftly dispatched before looking around.

Something wasn't right: Why was this place so empty? Where were the guards? If this facility really did hold munitions that the Raven's Wing considered so valuable, why was the security so meager?

Spyro crossed to one of the crates, lifted the lid carefully to check for any sign of booby traps; seeing none, he flipped it open unceremoniously. _Nothing_… Why would there be an empty crate…?

Spyro raced around the room, opening each crate he came to; all of them were as vacant as the first. _What is this_? What could be going on here? This room appeared to be the principle storage area, but it contained but a handful of crates, and all of them were empty! _Something's not right here_…

Spyro glanced around and saw several doors branching off from the room; as he looked, one on the western side was knocked in, and Captain Polemos stepped through with five of his troopers.

"The western side is clear, sir," Polemos reported, spotting Spyro.

"Have you found anything suspicious?" Spyro asked immediately, gesturing around at the opened, empty crates, "All of these crates are empty. There doesn't seem to be anything here: no munitions, no explosives, nothing."

"The rooms we cleared also seemed incongruously vacant," Polemos concurred slowly, "But our priority was to secure the area first."

"Of course," Spyro muttered; he turned and took another look around the room: There were three other doors leading out of the room, two on the north side, one on the east. _The other troopers must still be securing the eastern rooms_…

"You and your men take that rightward door on the north wall," he instructed Polemos, "I'll take the left."

"Yes sir." Polemos made a gesture, and he and his squad raced to the door, breached, and raced in. Spyro crossed quickly to the other door and expanded his senses again…

_Nothing_. He sensed nothing beyond the door, so he dispensed with his Earth powers and simply rammed the door down. The room to which it connected appeared to be a dimly lit and rather dusty office space, with a second door on the western wall.

Spyro moved over to the desk crammed into the northeastern corner of the room and examined the papers that were strewn atop it; there was nothing really interesting there except for some inventory reports that did confirm that the munitions _and_ the explosives had been here at least at some point or another. _So where are they_…?

He opened some drawers and rummaged around briefly, finding nothing of interest; that done, he left the desk disarranged (its owner would certainly not be returning for it any time soon) and moved over to the filing cabinets that stood against the north wall next to the unopened door. First however, he expanded his senses to reassure himself that no one lay beyond that door; this confirmed, he did a quick search of the filing cabinets, again finding nothing.

That he found odd: He could understand finding no really valuable intelligence in a desk, but a filing cabinet? Those were generally fountains of information, yet these cabinets were mostly empty, and the dates on what files _were_ there indicated that they were too old to be of much use insofar as his present purposes were concerned. _Strange_…

Spyro kicked in the closed door and entered the next room, finding it to be a sort of private storage closet; it contained nothing but a few empty racks and a large chest in the northwest corner. Spyro crossed over to the chest and tried to open it. It was padlocked. He broke the lock and wrenched the chest open.

There were a couple of folders inside, thick with papers; Spyro's heart leapt: Maybe he had finally found something —

_What the _— ? The papers were blank – literally blank – and the folders showed absolutely no indication as to what their original and legitimate contents had been.

The chest also contained a black case like the kind that Spyro had seen Dragon Army troopers use to carry explosive charges (the ERSOU troopers with him had some themselves), but the case was empty, just like everything else in the building.

The only other item in the big chest was a moderately sized painting with a simple wooden frame and backing (hawthorn, Spyro thought): It depicted a large, black, blue-eyed wolf and a blazing, golden fire throwing off showers of sparks that evanesced into the dark sky painted above them. In that dark sky was a huge owl clutching (Spyro's heart skipped a beat) a pure white lily speckled with red…exactly like the lily that he had given Cynder what felt like years ago, _and _that Natalia had found at the scene of King Parcel's murder.

_What is this_? Spyro wondered. The expanded bubble of awareness that he constantly kept around him suddenly vibrated, and a second later he heard footsteps; he turned to see Captain Polemos entering the closet, his second in command waiting just outside the door as a guard. Spyro presumed that the rest of the squad was searching the building for intelligence.

"Building secure, sir," the captain said quietly, "Preliminary investigations have turned up nothing. You were right, sir: There's a weird emptiness here…"

"Yes, there's nothing in either of these rooms either," Spyro muttered, gesturing at the office outside and the closet in which they stood, "No files that seem to be useful for us at the present moment, and this chest is a mystery — come take a look, Captain." Polemos approached and peered at the cryptic contents of the large chest.

"Blank papers, an empty case, and a painting," he summarized, "A motley and seemingly random collection of articles, to be sure…"

"But where are the munitions?" Spyro asked, half to himself, "From the looks of this case, the explosives were probably inside, but…" He trailed off, unsure what else to say, unable to make sense of the sheer incongruity of the things that he had seen in the past half hour.

Captain Polemos removed an instrument from a belt around his waist, leaned over the empty black case, and swabbed the interior with the instrument, which Spyro then recognized as a field tester for explosives residue. The swab was saturated with various chemicals that would react to the residual traces of the most common types of explosives or explosive components, including polyisobutylene: If the swab turned blue, the test was positive.

Polemos waited a few seconds before turning around: The soft, fibrous material at the end of the swab was a perfect shade of cerulean.

"There were definitely explosives in there at one point," he remarked unnecessarily.

"So where are they?" Spyro asked for what felt like the umpteenth time, even though it was the first time that he had actually _voiced_ the question. Captain Polemos shook his head grimly.

"I wish I knew, sir. From all appearances this building was vacated a while ago: We've seen general signs of disrepair all over the place, major and minor incidences — even a corroded support beam." Now Spyro _knew_ that something was up: A storage facility for munitions whose assortment included possibly volatile explosives would not allow such an egregious breach of structural integrity…not if they didn't want to risk the building falling in on them and then possibly blowing up around them…

"I have a nasty feeling about this…" Spyro murmured. Just then, the XO – a First Lieutenant Yplago – entered, another dragon behind him, not a member of the ERSOU, but whom Spyro nonetheless felt like he recognized.

"Pardon me, sirs," said Yplago. "This is an intelligence officer dispatched by Captain Marius perhaps an hour after our departure; he has a message for us — or, rather, for you, sir," he specified, looking calmly at Spyro.

"Is it sensitive, Lieutenant?" Spyro asked the intelligence officer, who looked extremely distraught.

"No sir," he panted – evidently he had raced to catch up with them – his chest heaving.

"Then you may speak freely," Spyro instructed, "Captain, you and your XO may remain here." The officers obliged by adopting an _at ease_ posture and fixing their gazes patiently and unobtrusively on the obviously perturbed messenger.

"Sir, Captain Marius only told me that the intelligence that brought you here was planted, and that the entire thing has been a ruse." Spyro's heart skipped a beat: He _knew_ that something had been wrong! _But a ruse…to conceal what? What is their _real_ purpose_?

"Why, Lieutenant?" he asked, forcing his voice to remain calm, "Why would such a ruse be employed?" The lieutenant glanced awkwardly at Polemos and Yplago.

"Um…I think that this part _is_ sensitive, sir…" Spyro nodded at the two ERSOU troopers, who returned the gesture, saluted, and left. The moment the door was shut, the lieutenant began again: "It's a distraction, sir. Marius only told me that he discovered who the 'next victim' was, and that you needed to return immediately, because this facility and the intelligence that led you here are both serving merely to prevent you from saving that victim."

"Who is it, Lieutenant?" Spyro demanded, his heart racing, blood pounding in his brain, "_Who is the next victim_?" The intelligence officer took a deep breath; he seemed almost scared to answer. Finally, just when the frenzied feeling rising inside Spyro was about to drive him to shake the answer out of him, the officer opened his mouth:

"Your brother, Sparx."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

_How could I have been so _stupid? Spyro berated himself furiously only ten minutes later as he raced through the swamps, his heart beating so fast that he could not discern its beats. He had used his powers to travel the great distance between the storage facility and the swamps in an instant, but he still feared that the ruse had bought the assassin the time that he had needed.

He had left Captain Polemos with his ERSOU to scrub the storage facility for intelligence and then to destroy it – there was no point in letting the Raven's Wing have it, even if it had been vacated – although he knew that it was strictly unwise – from a military point of view – to rush without backup into the swamps where he knew that an assassin could lurking.

Spyro didn't care: If Sefdomai – or Lozh or whatever this monster decided to call himself – dared to show his face, Spyro would ensure that this muddy, malodorous swamp would be the last thing that he ever saw in his mortal life.

_Sparx _always_ visits our parents this time of year, I should have _known! Spyro forced down those thoughts, and the stormy emotions that they brought with them; he could not afford to think that way. _Yet_, a little chilling voice in his head whispered in his ear. He pushed that thought away, too.

Spyro burst into a clearing, a little circular area filled with large (by dragonfly standards) mushrooms that glowed with an eerie, greenish light in the black night, periodically burning bright white in keeping with the flashes of lightning from above.

Spyro was surprised to find the clearing – where his parents lived – rather busy: Cynder stood near the central cluster of mushrooms that his parents called their home, with Keo standing a few paces away from her; Captain Marius was stooped over something a few yards to Spyro's right, not far from the edge of the clearing, and Doctor Ambulo was with him. Only after he had stared at the scene for a few moments did his frenzied brain recalled that Marius had had an hour's head start on him.

Cynder spotted him almost immediately after that thought popped into his head; she moved swiftly but inconspicuously over to him, put her wings around him, and hugged him in a way that gave him the tragic answer to the question that he dared not ask.

"Where's Sparx? Where're my parents?" Cynder said nothing; she released him only slightly and gave him the most tearful look that he had ever seen enter her emerald eyes. He glanced at Keo, whose normally jovial and almost vulpine face was somber with something that Spyro could only define as respectful and lugubrious sympathy.

Doctor Ambulo noted Spyro's arrival and straightened from examining whatever it was that so riveted his and Marius's interest and strode over to Spyro and Cynder.

"I am sorry, Spyro," he said quietly, his voice both clinical and sympathetic…the voice that doctors always used when… "There was nothing we could do." He paused. "Your parents were dead when we got here…" Spyro gulped, unable to comprehend the words. Cynder subtly tightened her embrace.

"And Sparx?" he croaked. Doctor Ambulo shook his head and gestured with his muzzle towards where Cynder had been standing and where Keo now stood.

"He is still with us…but only just…" Spyro slipped out of Cynder's embrace and staggered over to where Marius still stooped. The intelligence officer looked up at his approach. The look in his eye was the most pained expression that he had ever seen Marius wear. He stepped aside, and Spyro finally saw what he and Doc Ambulo had been examining:

His parents lay dead on the soggy ground, their inert forms stippled in blood. Spyro felt himself struck by a horrible, surreal mixture of vertigo, disbelief, and lamentation. From the angles at which their heads lay, he could tell that their tiny necks had been snapped, and their bodies sported no other visible wounds, so Spyro tried – futilely – to console himself in that they had died painlessly.

"Sir, I…" Marius, for the first time that Spyro had ever seen him in the near two decades that he had known him, seemed choked up, unable to speak from pure emotion; his golden eyes were a stormy sea of guilt, horror, and sympathy.

Spyro had no words for him; he simply turned away from his parents bodies and forced himself to move to where Keo stood. From this angle he could see Sparx lying atop a mushroom, the golden glow around his body ebbing and flowing in a soft pulsation that seemed to grow minutely fainter as Spyro approached.

He felt numb as he looked upon his brother: Sparx lay in a small pool of blood, his clear blue eyes rimmed in the gruesome red liquid, all blurred into a sepulchral gray by the rising darkness. His extremities twitched feebly, and his eyelids fluttered as he struggled to keep them open — whether because the pain was too intense or because he was fighting to retain his life for a few more precious seconds or for some other reason altogether, Spyro did not know.

All that mattered was Sparx: that he lay bloodied and pained, dying before Spyro's eyes; that he was there because Spyro had failed — again, and again, and again; that his life was slipping through Spyro's claws, and that he could do nothing to retrieve it: It was like grasping the very darkness around him.

Spyro was numb; he felt as though he had left his body. He did not even feel Cynder's flank pressed to his, her tail entwining gently with his own, or Keo's wing passing itself around him and Cynder together. All that he knew was that his brother lay dying before him.

"S-Spy…ro…" Sparx managed to groan, his blue eyes managing to focus for an instant; he tried to lift a hand, and his mouth opened to speak again; but before anyone could do anything, a strange gurgling noise issued from Sparx's throat, his breath failed him (Spyro thought he heard it pour out from his mouth and ascend heavenward), his hand dropped abruptly and grew still, and the sapphire eyes gleamed for a moment and then flickered out, like the snuffing of a flame.

A boom of thunder. A flash of lightning that rent the veil of the shadows. In that instant of effulgent, celestial light and cascading, resonant sound, the golden aura that surrounded Sparx evanesced, and Spyro thought that he could sense that infinitesimal, chilling yet radiant, utterly indescribable moment in which the soul separated from the body once and for all. A breath passed through the night air like a sigh. Rain began to fall.

Drops of water spattered Sparx's body, cleansing him of the blood that had borne away his life, forming a curtain over his empty blue eyes, causing them to splinter into shards of sapphire light.

Spyro looked up into the rain, the darkness complete as the blackening clouds occluded the celestial bodies, and the entire world became one stormy expanse of shadow full of sepulchral whispers as the wind whisked away the spirits of those whom Spyro had failed.

All he could think as he began to cry was that the heavens wept with him.


	12. The Owl and the Lily

**CHAPTER 12**

"The Owl and the Lily"

"I'm sorry, sir," Marius said quietly, "This is all my fault." Keo found that difficult to believe: Marius was a first-rate intelligence officer – maybe the best – and the situation as Keo had managed to piece it together thus far seemed too chaotic to be anyone's fault.

Spyro didn't seem to believe Marius's self-inculpation either — but Keo felt that he alone knew him well enough to discern any subliminal emotions through the mask of sorrow that his face had been for the last hour.

It had taken that long to sort out the mess: to get the bodies of the three dragonflies moved back to the Temple (why it took so long to move a group of bodies that collectively weighed less than Keo's right paw, he did not know…) and to calm everyone down enough to the point that an intelligent conversation could be sustained for more than two seconds.

"How is this your fault, Captain?" demanded Lieutenant Colonel Cognova, a fiery red dragon with green eyes that reflected an unusual combination of scholarliness and ferocity, "What precisely is _this_?" Keo wanted to know the answer to that, too: What on Earth _was_ going on here?

Marius did not answer immediately, despite the imperious tone of his superior officer; he glanced at Spyro, a totally indecipherable look in his eye. Spyro met his gaze levelly, though his face was still contorted in grief.

"Go ahead, Captain, you might as well. You can explain it better than I can…" Marius nodded nervously and returned his eyes to his superior officer, and then immediately dropped them obsequiously.

"Sir, about a week ago, I received circumstantial intelligence implicating a possible assassination attempt on Spyro's life. Due to the potential for moles in our infrastructure, I elected not to apprise you of this information, and up till this point, only about a dozen dragons have had any clue as to what has been happening these past days."

"You _elected_ not to tell me?!" Cognova nearly roared, his eyes blazing. Marius did not reply.

"The captain was well within his operational prerogatives," Spyro said in a quiet but firm voice; there was no mistaking the meaning of his tone: _Drop it, Lieutenant Colonel_. The director of the Division of Military Intelligence ducked his gaze in submission; evidently he caught the drift.

"Move on, then, Captain," Cognova growled, returning his only slightly mitigated gaze to Marius.

"Yes sir: I began to investigate these affairs, and that very day, the boy Zetch was killed. At first we suspected this to be somehow part of the assassination plot, but the data now suggests that the killing was inadvertent. I deployed about a half dozen intelligence officers directly into the field to attempt to ascertain the assassin's identity, whereabouts, and activity; these officers were mostly the ones that discovered the intelligence that began this whole affair, plus a couple of others that I trust." Marius paused awkwardly before continuing in a marginally quieter voice:

"I also ordered discreet investigations into various officials within the intelligence network…including you, sir." Cognova looked like he was about to express his distaste over this issue, but a glare from Spyro curtailed such an effort. "These efforts thus far have turned up nothing. We collected disjointed quanta of information concerning the assassin and the criminal syndicate of which, we found out later, he is an asset: the Raven's Wing."

"To make a long story short, sir, for the purposes of continuing our present and, given the recent events, all the more compelling mission, the victim list of the assassin – who possesses two known aliases, Sefdomai and Lozh – is as follows: Zetch, King Parcel, Exhumor the Manweersmall, Hunter the Avalaran, and, now, Sparx the dragonfly. Kain the Attlawan was also figured onto the list, but his murder was foiled; and not all of the victims were killed directly by the assassin."

"Do you have a plan for _capturing _this assassin before he murders again?" Cognova asked icily.

"Not as of yet, sir," Marius replied awkwardly, "We have been trying for days, but he is elusive and much more cunning than I, to my shame, estimated." He turned to Spyro, an apologetic look entering his eyes. "I am so sorry, sir; your brother's death is my fault. When my agent came into my office and informed me of the data concerning the holding facility – I've already sent the report on that to your office, Lieutenant Colonel, sir," he added quickly to Cognova, "he also passed me a report from my man on the inside, our undercover operative, who, at great risk to his life, discovered that the Raven's Wing has been using our informants as double agents to plant intelligence in our midst, sometimes real, sometimes false, but always known to them."

"So they've been using double agents to feed us intel…just so that they can keep track of what we know?" asked Spyro; Keo couldn't tell if his incredulous tone was genuine or a byproduct of his grief over his brother's death.

"It appears that way, sir."

"That's rather cunning…and devious," Cognova observed grimly, "Perhaps you ought to change your strategy, take a more aggressive and personal approach…"

"My suggestions are already on your desk, sir," Marius said subserviently.

"I am still not seeing how this is _your_ fault, Captain." Marius ducked his head, and for a very fleeting moment, Keo thought he would weep.

"When the field agent brought in the undercover operative's report…I placed it on my desk and neglected to read it until nearly an hour after having already sent Spyro with an ERSOU to the dummy holding facility. Because of my failure in protocol, Sparx is now dead. I am…so very sorry, sir," he said to Spyro, his voice quavering almost undetectably. Spyro gave him a look of extreme magnificence, of nobility that was shaming even to Keo, who had done nothing to be ashamed of (_Well, regarding _this_, anyway_…).

"Don't be sorry, Captain," he said in a sorrowful yet sympathetic tone, "We all make our mistakes — I've made more than my fair share in this matter already. Please…I'm going to need you, so don't blame yourself." Marius did not appear to feel vindicated, but he nodded his assent.

"Then it looks like we have work to do," Cognova muttered.

"Yes sir," said Marius, snapping back into professional mode, "With the data collected from the holding facility and said facility sterilized, and the autopsies on the victims underway, we must turn our attention to the most serious problem at hand: the integrity of our intelligence." Marius paused a moment before adding, "I suspect very strongly that there may be a mole among us."

"Then we _definitely_ have work to do," said Cognova matter-of-factly, "Let's go, Captain. I want to read that report of yours…" The two intelligence officers saluted and left. After a moment, Spyro turned to Keo.

"Keo…I'm sorry," he said tremulously, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I just…I didn't know what to do…" Keo smiled warmly at him; he crossed over and gave his best friend a hug.

"Aw, don't sweat it," he said gently, "Besides, I'm the one who's sorry…for you." He paused, blushed, and shuffled his feet. "Sorry, that didn't come out right — it was tactless."

"You usually are," Spyro muttered, managing a weak smile. Keo grinned broadly.

"Hey, what can I say? It's part of my charm…"

"Now _that_ was tactless…" They both laughed a little, and Spyro hugged Keo. "Thanks, Keo…for everything."

"Yeah — don't mention it. You take care, Spyro. I'll come see ya later…"

"Thanks…g'night…" Spyro left, and Keo was left in the room alone. He crossed over to the window: The rain that had started up again an hour ago was pounding against the window, and Keo couldn't see an inch beyond the glass because of the darkness.

Keo wasn't one for emotional reflection, but he found his thoughts lingering over Spyro and Cynder, and he found himself acutely worried about them. It didn't help that he was still utterly perplexed about this whole assassin thing; he wasn't sure that he was going to understand it any time soon.

One thing he _did_ know: He would be watching out for Spyro and Cynder from now on.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"I miss him, Cynder," Spyro whispered, tears staining his cheeks, "I…I just really miss him."

"I know, Spyro," she whispered back; she didn't know what else to do except hold him closer.

"I can't believe this," he whimpered, his amethyst eyes glowing waveringly as he started to cry again, "Why him? He had _nothing_ to do with it, he was innocent…" _They all were_, Cynder thought sadly.

"I don't know why, Spyro," she murmured honestly, "I wish I did. But I'm sorry…I know what Sparx meant to you…" Spyro looked her straight in the eye and managed to smile for a second.

"Thanks, Cynder — I know you two didn't really…well…" Cynder smiled weakly, too; she hugged him again, letting him let out his tears on her shoulder.

No, she and Sparx had never really gotten along well, and they had grown even further apart once she and Spyro had had children — in fact, Arial's conception had been the single thing that had most contributed to the almost utter dissolution of their relationship. He and Spyro had still remained close, although the amount of time they spent together had been significantly reduced, but Cynder had seen practically nothing of the dragonfly…and had liked it that way.

But now…she found herself more pained by his death than she had expected when she'd first seen him lying in that swamp, half drowning in his own blood. She had been surprised at how much it had hurt to see him like that. And now, seeing how it was affecting Spyro, that pain was deepening by the second. She could only imagine what the purple dragon who had lost his dear brother was feeling.

She held him closer.

"Mom? Dad?" Cynder looked over at the door and saw Rose standing there; she had that innocent, confused look that children so often wore in the face of the crises that they did not understand. "Is Dad okay?" she added, spotting her father with his tearstained face.

Cynder had no idea how to answer that one; she wasn't sure of the answer herself, and even if she had been, how was she to explain all of this to a child? She had never been good at that: That was Spyro's forte…

"Yeah, I'll be all right, Rose," Spyro assured her, managing to smile at his daughter, who came over to him, still wearing that curious, concerned look. Rose was at that age where she wanted to fix everything that went wrong. Spyro wrapped his tail around her and held her close to his side; she only barely reached it, even when he was sitting down. She had always been a little one…

"I just lost somebody tonight," Spyro muttered, "And…that makes me really sad. Don't you worry about it, okay?"

"Okay," Rose yawned, closing her celadon eyes and snuggling a little closer to her father. She looked exhausted — it had to be almost midnight; Cynder had to wonder why she was up in the first place, but before she could ask, Rose had fallen asleep wrapped up in Spyro's tail. Spyro bowed his head and kissed her gently on the cheek; then he looked up at Cynder and smiled weakly.

"Looks like I can't afford to fall apart, huh?"

"Nope," Cynder said lightly, "You've got too many people depending on you." The moment the words escaped her mouth she knew that they were wrong. Spyro gave her a look that assured her that he knew what she had meant. All he said was:

"Isn't _that_ the truth…?"

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"This whole affair is just an enormous mess," Marius summarized bitterly. Spyro nodded in complete agreement. They were walking along the highest of the Temple's northern ramparts, so high that the churning dark clouds – dark enough to heavily mitigate the noonday sun – were only a few dozen feet above them, close enough that Spyro worried that they might be struck with lightning.

But these ramparts were secluded, especially during such stormy weather: They were narrow, windy, and cold – even during the summer – and they were ringed in thick patches of flowers that somehow managed to thrive in these weird conditions. Spyro loved the flowers – he had even planted some of them – and their scents were soothing at a time like this, as was the warm but refreshing air — which clashed strangely with the impending storm. At least it wasn't raining…

"I'm going back over all of the data with a fine-toothed comb and a team of analysts," Marius continued wearily, "trying to discern what intelligence was fabricated and what wasn't. This'll set us back a while…

"On the plus side, Lieutenant Colonel Cognova has promulgated a BOLO for our assassin, linking him to suspected aiding and abetting in a larceny at a mineral processing plant in Pueris — which is technically true, according to Scabré: That's where the polyisobutylene came from. The BOLO has been disseminated across the entire southern realms, and a messenger has been sent to the North Isles to pass it off there, as well." Spyro remembered Lieutenant Colonel Cognova sitting him and Scabré down to go over all that the two of them combined could provide concerning the assassin's appearance. _Well, that explains _that_, at least_…

'Unfortunately," Marius continued, almost as though talking to himself, "I am concerned that ordinary police will be unable to detain Sefdomai should they capture him — if he has eluded our grasp…" He trailed off, but Spyro could complete the sentence.

"Speaking of which," Marius added gingerly, "In the report I received from my agent on the inside of the Raven's Wing, it would appear that Sefdomai escaped our clutches by a hairbreadth in Avalar."

"What?" asked Spyro, suddenly interested.

"Well, it seems – I'm not sure, but that's what the report seems to imply – that the assassin left Hunter's body only a few minutes before our arrival in the village."

"Are you trying to depress me _more_, Captain?" asked Spyro miserably; he hardly needed to hear right now just how total his failure had been.

"No sir, but Doctor Ambulo and I spent a long two hours last night going over every last detail of what we know about this assassin, psychoanalyzing him. He's trying to toy with you, sir: After you and Captain Polemos set out for the holding facility, it took me an hour to figure out that we had been fooled. I immediately sent the messenger to inform you, and then I grabbed Cynder and Keo and departed for the swamps; it didn't take us long to get there, but your parents were already DOA, and Sparx was dying. Keo raced back for Doc Ambulo, but there was nothing that we could do." Marius paused uncomfortably before continuing:

"I read the preliminary toxicology reports this morning: According to Doctor Arial, Sparx was dosed with a high concentration of an aerosol toxin that is harmless to dragons but fatal to smaller animals. Given the levels of the chemical in his blood and what we know about its symptomology…it was administered between ten to fifteen minutes prior to when I first discovered that we had been duped." Spyro, with his grief-numbed brain, couldn't understand what that meant at first; but then the significance sank in…

"So…he _wanted_ us to nearly walk in on him? He _wanted_ us to miss him by only a few minutes?"

"It would seem so," Marius confirmed delicately, "And that leads me to the crux of my and Doctor Ambulo's psychoanalysis: This individual is an extreme sociopath with a great degree of cunning. He will go to any length, break every rule, contravene all convention in order to achieve his purpose, which we suspect is personal. This is not an individual who will take orders — I doubt that the Raven's Wing has any real control over him: They are merely convenient, a logistical vehicle. With him there are no boundaries, everything is fair game, no matter how heinous or contemptible."

"As opposed to the ruthless and disciplined company man we've been chasing thus far?" Spyro asked, half serious, half sarcastic.

"Well, yes: He _is_ ruthless, and, to a degree, disciplined, but he lacks the ability to empathize in any way with others."

"Why me, then?" Spyro asked, not really expecting Marius to have an answer, "Why has he picked _me_?"

"I…I do not know, sir. I wish I did."

"You and I both, Marius…"

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Strix Laboratories was a huge chemical processing plant in the southeastern districts of Warfang, a multipurpose laboratory complex that housed various research facilities. Unbeknownst to many, it often provided material to the Dragon Army for research in biochemical weaponry.

Sergeant Tochaio, Warfang Police Department, really didn't like the plant, which sat in the middle of his prescribed beat: It was smelly, for one thing, and there was always some strange dragon in a gas mask walking around the buildings inside the two double-fenced security perimeters spraying some weird-colored and equally foul-smelling liquid. The sergeant found himself always walking a little bit faster than usual just to get past the malodorous collection of buildings.

But today something seemed off: The spraying dragon was nowhere to be seen, and the two security gates that Tochaio passed on his beat were empty. Now _that_ was strange: Strix Laboratories took security to an art form. _Hmm…wonder if I should drop in_…

Just as the thought popped into his head, he saw a dragon walking swiftly and purposefully across the grounds: a lithe blue dragon with crimson eyes…

_Now where have I seen him before…_? Tochaio knew that the face was familiar, but he couldn't quite place it…

The dragon saw him, smiled, and nodded.

_Well, seems like everything's all right_. If there was a problem, surely the dragon would have signaled.

Tochaio had advanced several dozen yards before he realized where he'd seen that face before: on the BOLO that had been distributed throughout the precinct.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"Sir!" Marius exclaimed, bursting into the dormitory, not even bothering with the pretense of knocking. Spyro looked up from the game he had been playing with Rose, both alarmed and, surprisingly, irritated.

"Where's the fire, Marius?" he managed to ask lightly.

"There's been a hit on the BOLO — in Warfang, a chemical processing plant called Strix Laboratories."

"What?" Spyro leaped to his paws, "Already?"

"Happy coincidence, sir. A messenger arrived from Warfang ten minutes ago: There's a hostage situation at the laboratory, and a passing police officer spotted a dragon who matches the BOLO's exact description."

"Hostages? We need to get moving!" Spyro would _not_ let what had happened to Hunter and Sparx happen to one of those hostages.

"No sir, that is not advisable," said Marius quickly, "Your presence would likely inflame the situation, and remember…" He paused, glancing at Rose and phrasing his next words very carefully: "…no one knows the exact…_gravity_ of this situation except for us." Spyro took the hint: His showing up in Warfang for a simple hostage situation would provoke suspicion, especially when the culprit was, to the general public, no more than an alleged larcenist.

"Okay," he forced himself to say, "What's the plan?"

"I've already dispatched Captain Polemos and his ERSOU."

"Good," Spyro said, "Follow him and stay on-site. I want your eyes on that scene, Marius."

"You've got it, sir." Marius turned and raced from the room, adding quickly, "I will keep you posted, sir!" Spyro, feeling utterly flustered, began to pace around the room.

"What's going on, Dad?" asked Rose innocently, looking alarmed and concerned at her father's reaction to what to her must have been very cryptic news. Spyro looked at her and smiled – genuinely smiled – for what felt like the first time in years. He swooped down and hugged her tightly.

A hostage situation was rarely resolved with the culprit escaping: The real difficulty was keeping the hostages alive. Barring some catastrophe, it was unlikely that Sefdomai would escape this time. _We've got him!_ Spyro's mind roared triumphantly.

"Let's just say that we might be about to catch a really, _really_ bad guy," Spyro told his daughter before hugging her again.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

The Warfang PD's HRT-2 stood huddled outside a chemical storage vault on the plant's east side, awaiting the return of their recon unit. Sergeant Tochaio, the officer who had ID'd the suspect, was standing with them, looking very out of place, very excited, and very nervous. A member of the Hostage Rescue Team was still trying to coax all of the details out of him before dismissing him (he would just get in the way). So far, all that they knew was that there was a dragon inside that vault holding five others captive, threatening to kill them all.

Captain Soteiras sat grumbling to himself, looking about anxiously for his scouts: Until they reported the situation, the HRT could do nothing but hold their current positions. The really infuriating thing was that, given the nature and variety of the chemicals stored in the huge vault, they could not even use the flashbang grenades clipped to their vests: The concussive force of even one of them going off could trigger a disastrous reaction. That put even more stress on planning their entry, which would require the scouts' report…

Just at that moment, two dragons sidled around the corner of the building, striding quickly up to Soteiras.

"Finally," he growled, "What's the situation?"

"Sticky," replied one of them, "The five hostages are bound and on the floor; we counted four tangos, including the principle suspect."

"The hostages are all positioned near sensitive chemical containers, as far as we could tell," added the second dragon, "and the larcenist was rummaging around in the shelves — looking for something, it would seem."

"Probably more stuff to steal," Soteiras remarked caustically, "Any ventilation systems that we could use for alternate entry? I don't like the idea of racing through that door…"

"There's an industrial air exchanger positioned on the side of the building, but it'd be difficult to get many dragons through there quietly. The tangos are positioned about twenty yards away from the door, so a forward attack is not advisable," reported the first scout.

"I hate to say it, sir," the other dragon added grimly, "but we may have to let them come out before neutralizing them."

"We may not be able to do that before they kill a hostage," Soteiras muttered. A sticky situation indeed…

— — — — — *** — — — — —

After the fervor of having finally cornered the assassin had simmered somewhat, Spyro began to worry: Why would Sefdomai have taken hostages? What was he doing at Strix Laboratories? Spyro knew that the lab was often under contract to deliver chemical weapons precursors to the smaller but more specialized labs housed in the depths of the Temple, so it in no way skimped on security. It had been a terrible risk to take hostages there…and for what?

Of course, Sefdomai had used chemicals quite a bit: The deaths of Exhumor, King Parcel, Scabré's two informants, and Sparx had all been engineered by chemical means. Spyro had little doubt that what he sought in the plant would be employed in a similar function.

But why the hostages? Why not – Spyro shuddered even as he thought it – simply kill anyone who got in the way? It was quieter and certainly easier to manage in terms of an escape plan.

_Why the hostages_? Spyro asked himself yet again as he continued to play with Rose. Perhaps…perhaps this had something to do with what Marius had said: _Is he "toying with me" again_? It certainly would be infuriating if he were to escape from a seemingly inescapable situation. Spyro wondered if he ought to go down to Warfang and take care of this himself — he was sure that he could…

But no: He had to stay here. He could not help but worry, though.

_Did I just send Marius into an ambush_?

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Captain Soteiras sidled over to the corner of the building to try and negotiate for the fifth time with the hostage takers. For the past hour, every fifteen minutes, he had been trying to wheedle a hostage or two out of the tangos — and by this point he would almost settle for them simply telling him what they wanted.

"This is Captain Soteiras again!" he called loudly around the corner so that the hostage takers would hear him through the door to the storage vault, "If you do not negotiate with me, there is nothing I can do for you."

"There is nothing you have that I want," came the snide reply, as it had all four times before. Soteiras rolled his eyes, turned and backed away behind the wall. A strange sight met his eyes: Ten unfamiliar dragons stood in rank and file in front of his XO, Lieutenant Leitnan, engaged in what appeared to be an awkward and slightly tense conversation.

"What is this?" Soteiras demanded, striding over briskly. An extremely well-muscled, ice-blue dragon with eyes of a deep, mauve-like color and wearing military captain's epaulettes turned towards him.

"I am Captain Polemos, Dragon Army Emergency Response Special Operations Unit Delta-116. We were deployed here the moment you alerted the Temple of the developments à propos of the current hostage situation and the presence of BOLO suspect Alpha-113206-Lima."

"We've got this in hand, Captain Polemos," replied Soteiras curtly. He was not in any way impressed that the captain had quoted the BOLO number from memory, nor the fact that he was the leader of one of the fabled ERSOUs that had carried out some of the most incredible special operations in Dragon Army history.

"Even so, Captain, I must assert my superior authority. We will take down these criminals _jointly_." If Soteiras was supposed to find that mandate generous…he did not.

"No offense, Captain, but having to debrief you guys and prep you will only slow us down, and — "

"Your arguing a losing battle is already slowing us down enough, Captain," quipped Polemos in a firm, icy voice, "We _will_ operate _jointly_."

"Very well," Soteiras grumbled; he knew better than to try disputing military authority as a "mere" civil servant. _These soldiers are all alike_… "The lieutenant here will brief you."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Spyro lay near the balcony, examining the dark sky swirling with clouds fat with rain, listening to the soft sound of Rose's breathing as she lay against his side. He found it funny that she had been the one to get tired out from playing, despite the fact that it had been he who had been up pretty much all night.

He hadn't seen Lucas since yesterday, since the boy had been studying nonstop for that transmogrification exam of his; and Arial was busy with the autopsies (a subject that he wouldn't allow his mind to peruse yet). Rose had had the day off, but as he understood it, she would be back in classes tomorrow.

"Hey, Spyro. Can I come in?" Keo was standing at the door.

"Yeah, sure, Keo — just don't wake Rose here." Keo grinned and entered, crossing over to the balcony and taking a peek at Rose.

"Cute kid," he remarked, "She's gonna be really pretty when she grows up some…" Spyro smiled at the compliment as Keo sat down next to him, but he wrapped Rose up gently in his tail.

"Yeah, she will, but hands off, you!"

"Hey, relax!" Keo replied with a smirk, "I wouldn't touch your daughter — besides, she's too young."

"She won't be young for much longer," Spyro pointed out.

"Yeah, but she's still your daughter. That'd be too weird for me."

"_Nothing's_ too weird for you, Keo," Spyro noted with a half-smile, "I _know_ you, remember? Or have you forgotten that time that I walked in on you and that — "

"All right, all right, I get the message!" Keo assured him hastily, displaying a rare and uncharacteristic blush. Spyro laughed. It felt good to tease his best friend: Somehow it made him feel like Sparx was a little closer.

But he was still serious about Rose being untouchable for him: Keo was a good dragon – he had a heart of gold – and underneath all of the muscle and bluster he was a wonderful person, _but_…well, he was a rather concupiscent individual…putting it politely. He wasn't without self-control, but…

"Anyway, Rose is off-limits to you."

"I can live with that, Spyro, I can live with that… Well, I came to see how you were doing, but if you're bringing up that…um, you-know-what…then you must be doin' all right."

"I'm…dealing, Keo," Spyro said honestly.

"That you are, my friend, that you are… If you need anything, Spyro," Keo said quietly, "I'm here for you, all right? You guys are my family." Spyro looked at him, rather touched; for Keo to say something so personal was a weighty matter.

"Thanks, Keo… That means a lot." Keo nodded and shuffled his paws uncomfortably.

"Well…since you seem to be doing fine, I'll just get going then." He started for the door. "See ya later, Spyro."

"Yeah…see you, Keo." Spyro watched as one of the best dragons he'd ever known left the room.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"We have three men in the ventilation system," Captain Soteiras growled, "but we're still trying to conduct negotiations."

"And should these negotiations fail?" asked Marius. The HRT captain glared at him suspiciously.

"Who are you, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Just a handler — SOP, Captain, SOP," he added in a defusing tone.

"Well…should the negotiations fail, we storm the building, neutralize the tangos, and secure the hostages."

"We know that, Captain," said Captain Polemos somewhat wintrily, "What we want to know is how you intend to go about _doing_ that."

"My dragons in the vents will strike quickly, distract the hostiles long enough for the rest of my team to breach the door and take them down without too much of a fuss."

"How will they know when to emerge?" asked Marius.

"I told them before they inserted that we would attempt to negotiate one more time; if that is botched, that's their signal to move."

"Then your negotiations had better succeed," said Marius darkly.

"I'm not taking that chance," Polemos declared, "I'll talk to the tangos."

"Fine by me," Soteiras assured him, "Better you than me…" Captain Polemos strode briskly over to the corner of the building and called out to the hostage takers:

"You in there — listen to me. This is Captain Polemos, Dragon Army. Let's talk about the hostages."

"Dragon Army, eh?" came a curious, almost amused voice, "Captain Polemos…Ah, yes, _you_ were the one from the glacial facility, were you not?" Marius felt his blood freeze: How could he possibly know that? At least one thing was sure now: There was no doubt in his mind that this was in fact the assassin that they had sought for so long.

"What's he talking about?" hissed Soteiras.

"No clue," Polemos lied smoothly; he returned to his negotiation: "I am afraid that whatever you are referring to is not what I wish to discuss. You have been holding five dragons hostage for over an hour, and you must be aware that you have no escape route. If you do not negotiate with us, this situation will undoubtedly turn nasty. Please, tell us what you want, and show us some good faith: Release one of the hostages to us."

"I already have what I want, so why should I give _you_ anything?"

"That's bad," Marius hissed, "If he already has what he wants, there's nothing to stop him from killing those dragons right now!"

"There is one thing," Soteiras contradicted, "Leverage: He'll try to use them to make his getaway."

"Yplago!" Polemos said to his XO, "Grab a couple of men and circle around to the other side of the building in case they try to rush out." Soteiras gave the same order to his own XO, and half a dozen dragons raced away around the building.

"Send us one hostage!" Polemos called to Sefdomai.

"I'll give you all five — right now!" Before they could do more than register the strangeness of these words, five dragons, bound and gagged, came rolling out of the vault, flung unceremoniously by the three beefy dragons who followed. Then, before the HRT or the ERSOU dragons could move at all, Sefdomai himself – matching Spyro's descriptions perfectly – appeared…toting a semiconscious HRT man by the scruff of the neck.

As they watched, Sefdomai lowered him to the ground and planted a paw, claws unsheathed, on his neck.

"Captain Polemos," he said imperiously, glaring directly at the captain, "order your men to back off…or this dragon dies." Marius looked at Polemos and could tell that he was seriously considering taking the risk; one of the ERSOU dragon's paws twitched as its owner made a conscious effort to restrain it from using one of the flashbangs clipped to his vest. _Don't Polemos, don't_…

Training took over: Polemos yielded and order his men back; they complied, leaving the little alley in front of the storage vault empty except for the hostages and their assailants, Marius, Soteiras, and Polemos.

"Very good," Sefdomai sneered, "Now, Captain Whatever-Your-Name-Is, your other two HRT troopers are in there, unconscious." With his free paw, the assassin swooped down and freed one of his HRT hostage's flashbangs, which he raised for the captains' inspection: "You make one move on us, I throw this flashbang inside the vault: It goes off, and those two men burn — and this one dies, too," he added, indicating the dragon he held by the neck.

_We can't take that risk_, Marius thought; their only shot was that the men who had circled around would be able to take the terrorists down. _Where _are_ they_…? Sefdomai, sensing their hesitance, barked at one of his thugs, who turned and walked back into the vault; he returned a moment later, carrying a small, sealed container (maybe a half square-meter) full of what appeared to be white powder.

"Now that I have what I want," Sefdomai continued casually, as though discussing the weather over a friendly drink, as the dragon set the box next to him, "I think that we are done here." He nodded to two of his men, who rolled the hostages discourteously over to Polemos, who stood rigidly, wearing a look of utmost contempt. Once all five hostages had been transferred, the thugs gathered in a tight ring around their leader.

"What about my men?" Soteiras demanded, taking a bold step forward. Sefdomai smiled wickedly, and Marius suddenly felt a horrible, ominous sensation shoot through him.

"I think that they accepted the risk when they crawled into those vents," Sefdomai whispered; then, in one fluid motion, he armed the flashbang and hurled it into the vault while simultaneously raking his claws across the HRT dragon's neck:

Blood shot up in a red geyser, blocking Sefdomai from view as the assassin spun and seized the box of whatever he had purloined from the vault, which suddenly exploded with a burst of light and sound that left Marius's ears ringing and nearly knocked him to the ground; the flashbang's deflagration was followed up almost immediately by a horrendous explosion that shook the walls of the vault and sent a river of flame pouring out from the door and bursting into a plume of fire that sent a crashing wave of heat throughout the alley, accompanied by a wave of concussive force that really did knock Marius to the ground.

Head spinning, ears ringing, body aching for some reason, Marius forced himself to his feet, collapsed, got up again, and tried to stagger towards the HRT man.

Polemos was already there.

"No chance," he whispered, looking furious with himself for having allowed such a fiasco. Marius looked around: The troopers that had circled around the vault had managed to capture one of the three thugs, but one of them had been cut badly across the face; his buddy was seeing to the wound now.

"Not a very happy outcome," Marius observed ruefully. Polemos did not respond: He was staring quizzically at something on the dead HRT dragon's chest. Marius looked: There, sitting amidst the blood that had sprayed across his chest when his throat had been cut…

…was a pure white lily speckled in red.


	13. The Shadowèd Wolf

**CHAPTER 13**

"The Shadowèd Wolf"

"This is an utter disaster," Spyro muttered to himself, walking back and forth, trying to stave off the strange mixture of fury, confusion, and despair that was spurring his anxious steps. He sighed. "What's the damage?" he asked Marius, who stood before him looking exactly as Spyro felt.

"Three dragons dead, one suffering a minor facial wound. My ears are still throbbing… The storage vault was scorched — pretty much nothing left in there. Structural damage and a ruptured ventilation duct have necessitated tearing down and rebuilding it. Strix Laboratories is rather miffed…"

"And the official story as to what happened?"

"Lieutenant Colonel Cognova stipulated on the BOLO that any sighting of the suspect should be handled with extreme discretion, and the public was not aware of anything more than that the police had converged on the laboratories. The official story is robbery gone bad. People will talk, but…well, they won't know anything." Somehow that didn't make Spyro feel any better. Sefdomai's bold escape suggested that he had planned the whole thing, and that led Spyro to believe that he really _was_ trying to toy with him.

"What was he after?"

"We're still not sure, sir: The box that he escaped with contained a white powder, but, given the damage caused by the flashbang, an inventory to check for what was missing was simply out of the question. Strix Laboratories is still trying to figure that out."

"Fantastic," Spyro muttered, mostly to himself. The idea of Sefdomai once again being in possession of likely dangerous chemicals was not very comforting. "Did anyone notice Captain Polemos's team?"

"Not to our knowledge, sir, and if they did, it could be explained in that the Dragon Army took a personal interest in the integrity of one of its contractors." Spyro supposed that that was plausible.

"This isn't working, Marius," he said quietly after a moment's reflection, "This official approach just isn't working. We've got to _do_ something — who knows how many people he'll kill before we can catch him! Besides that, if he keeps murdering, _somebody's_ eventually going to put two and two together and guess that there's a killer out there that we can't stop, and then _that'll_ cause who knows what sort of hysteria."

"Agreed," said Marius solemnly, "Cognova and I will be discussing that today."

"Any idea what our options are?" Spyro asked; it wasn't like the meeting was above his security clearance.

"I…I am not sure, sir: Our policing systems are still quite rough around the edges, particularly since there hasn't been much in the way of this sort of crime since Malefor's demise. We are on very unfamiliar ground here, and this is a sensitive situation — "

"You're temporizing, Captain," Spyro interrupted gently; he didn't have the time or the patience remaining to permit such digression. Marius shuffled uncomfortably.

"I do not know what Cognova has in mind; all _I_ know is that…well, to use the old adage – with which you, with your upbringing, sir, are likely very familiar – 'the only way to catch a swamp rat'…"

"…'is to get right down in the mud with it,'" Spyro completed direly.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Spyro walked into the dormitory and greeted Cynder with a muffled _Hello_, on account of the painting that he had clutched gently in his teeth.

"What is that?" asked Cynder as he set it down in the portal to the balcony so that the setting sun's rays could illuminate it more clearly.

"I found it in that dummy facility in the glacial plains," Spyro answered, staring at the perplexing painting, "After what happened down in Warfang, it seems pretty clear that this assassin is messing with me; I think he left this painting in that facility for me to find _on purpose_."

"You think it means something, then?" Cynder asked curiously, approaching to peer at the painting herself.

"Hopefully," Spyro muttered; he didn't complete his thought aloud: _Hopefully it'll lead me to the next victim_.

The DMI analysts from whom he had signed out the piece of art (if one could call _anything_ that that assassin had produced _art_…) had confirmed for him that it had indeed been made of hawthorn as he had initially surmised, but they didn't really know anything else.

Scrutinizing the painting carefully, he saw a discrepancy in the level of detail: The black wolf, the blazing fire, and the flower-clutching owl (in truth, it had been the appearance of a lily at the crime scene in Warfang that had made Spyro think of the painting, which he had totally forgotten about up to that point), the subjects of the painting, all displayed intricate and painstaking detail, down to the slight ruffle in coloration to account for the owl's movement in flight _and_ to the slight glimmer in the wolf's eyes brought about by the firelight.

Yet the ambiance was blurred and unrefined: The darkness that enveloped the objects in the painting – except for a small, pale orange circle around the fire – was dull, smeared, and foggy; it looked like it had been merely slapped onto the canvas. There was no scenery as far as Spyro could tell, no setting — just swirls in the darkness that may or may not have been silhouettes.

He couldn't even see the wolf except for a change in sharpness and the fierce gleam in his blue eyes. Otherwise, the beast was utterly ensconced in shadows.

"Doesn't seem to be very in-depth…" Cynder remarked almost sarcastically.

"I swear there's something here," Spyro muttered far more seriously, his gaze flitting back and forth between the fire and the wolf, occasionally perusing the sinister look in the owl's eyes…

_That's it_! The owl represented the killer, of course! The lily was the sign: He used a lily to mark his kills. _But he's only done that twice — once with Parcel, and once again in Warfang_. Spyro pushed that aside: It was irrelevant; only the recent killing mattered. Sefdomai would've expected him to use the lily to connect him to the bird of prey soaring in the tenebrous sky painted onto the canvas.

_So does that mean that the fire and the wolf really _do_ represent victims_? If so, who? Why were there only two? Did that mean that only two victims remained?

"If these objects are the victims," he murmured aloud, pointing slowly at the fire and the wolf in turn, "then who are they?"

"Well, wait a minute," Cynder said suddenly, "if they _are_ the victims, and you found that painting _before_ Sparx was killed, then one of them must represent Sparx."

"You're right!" Spyro declared almost excitedly; but which object was indicative of his deceased brother? _Which else, you dolt? The fire is throwing up _sparks! Of course! _Sparks_ and _Sparx_ were homophonous!

Before Spyro could reflect on the corniness of that clue, he moved on to the wolf.

"The fire is Sparx, so who is the wolf?"

"I don't know, Spyro," Cynder said; something about her tone made him break his eyes away from the painting: She was staring at him concernedly.

"What?" he asked innocently.

"I'm worried about you," she said very evenly, "…about what this might be doing to you. Spyro…Sparx's death hit you hard, and I just want to make sure that you're not chasing this guy for the wrong reasons."

"_Is_ there a wrong reason for wanting to catch this monster?" Spyro asked, only half serious; Cynder returned his remark with a grave look.

"Yes," she said simply. Spyro stared into her emerald eyes; he asked himself the same question: Am _I chasing this guy for the wrong reasons? Why do I want to catch him so badly_?

_Because this has to stop_, he answered himself resolutely. _These murders…they've _got_ to end…and I ought to be the one to stop them_. Spyro sighed, turned away from the painting, and hugged Cynder.

"I just want it all to stop, Cynder," he said almost tearfully, "I just…I want this to end." Cynder reciprocated his hug warmly.

"I know, Spyro; just…don't lose yourself in the process, okay?" Spyro leaned back and smiled at her.

"You got it."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Scabré meandered down the Temple corridors early the following morning, as the sun was just beginning to rise, casting its feeble rays through the windows. He found himself highly perplexed: In the course of two days, he had been utterly absorbed into an affair deeper and more malignant than any he had seen in the criminal world of Vunoire — and that was saying something.

This assassin business was ominous to say the least, and Scabré was…professionally concerned à propos of the Dragon Army's rapid and rather peremptory commandeering of his person for use in their investigations. He had not put it to the test, but he strongly suspected that he would be "detained" if he attempted to leave.

He could not begrudge Spyro the prerogative, though: His position as quite literally the most powerful dragon in the world – politically and otherwise – certainly granted him the authority, and it would certainly contravene Scabré's own code of honor to resist such an _ex officiō_ detainment.

Marius had informed him last night of the events that had occurred in Warfang, and that had confused him even more: As a police officer, he was more familiar with such situations than was Marius, but he could not figure why an assassin would risk himself in so ill-orchestrated an effort to procure what likely could have been undetectably attained by stealthier and only slightly more time-consuming means.

_What is going on around here_? He could not make heads or tails of the situation — but he supposed that that was not his job: His job was to assist in _locating_ the murderer, not to pick apart his motives. Of course, the two were inextricably intertwined…

Suddenly, a dragon flew past in a flash of purple; he thought it was Spyro, but a moment's inspection proved it to be Arial, darting down the hallway as though racing to an accident scene.

"What's going on, Doctor?" he called after her.

"There's been an accident! A chemical shipment from Warfang — the container just exploded!" Arial continued racing down the corridor, Scabré now following hot on her heels.

"Can I help?"

"We can also use an extra hand!" Scabré followed as Arial turned down a winding stairwell, which opened out onto a courtyard on the Temple's southwestern side; on the opposite side of the courtyard, there was a wheeled container lying tilted (on account of missing one of its wheels, which was sitting forlorn a dozen feet away) and smoking from a horrible breach in its side.

Scabré counted ten dragons on the scene: From their regalia, one was a doctor, two were nurses; one was an MP, one was Keo; the other five were lying on the ground, a couple bleeding. Arial raced over to the doctor:

"What've you got?" she demanded. The doctor spouted some medical gibberish that Scabré did not understand at all; Arial nodded and darted to one of the other victims. Scabré, for his part, approached Keo. (He had met the strapping Fire dragon two or three days ago, and he had liked him from the outset: There was just something trustable about him.)

"What happened here?" he asked him. Keo shook his head.

"Not a clue — yet: I was on sentry duty over on the western ramparts, happened to hear the explosion, and came running. I only got here a few minutes ago."

"I was at the gate when they came in," the MP said grimly, "I heard the explosion and ran in, and there were those five dragons on the ground. The container was belching smoke everywhere — smelled horrible…" Now that the odor was mentioned, Scabré could just barely detect it: A foul, indescribable scent that lingered on the edge of perception.

"Odors in explosions," Keo murmured, "Somehow I don't think that that's a good thing…"

"It's not," said Arial, approaching quickly between triaging patients, "From the smell, I'd say its nitrogen dioxide. Keo, you're probably fine, but you, sir, will probably have to come to the hospital for detox. I don't know how much gas you were exposed to, but it can be lethal and slow to present." She moved off to a dragon who was moaning in pain; he appeared to have several nasty burns on his face.

"Nitrogen dioxide, huh?" muttered Keo, "I was no chemistry geek, but I know enough to know that that means there was a nitrogen compound in there, and a lot explosives use nitrogen compounds…"

"You think that this was intentional?" asked Scabré; from what he knew about this assassin Lozh, he would not doubt it. After all, he had murdered two dragons with chemical injections…

Keo shrugged: "Anybody's guess, eh?" A couple of other nurses and a third doctor had arrived, and the medical professionals began to rush the patients to the nearest operating ward.

"Any other damage?" Keo asked the MP, who shook his head in reply:

"Nah — from what I saw, it was a pretty isolated explosion. I'd guess that most of those injuries were just superficial." Keo nodded.

"Yeah, I think you're right; I may not know chem like the back of my paw, but I do know fire, and those wounds didn't look too serious from a Fire dragon's perspective. I've seen worse burns in _training_…"

"I'll go get the inventory list," the MP said, as though thinking aloud, "Maybe this really was an accident…" He turned and jogged out through the gate to the courtyard, vanishing around the corner. Keo looked at Scabré, an almost calculating look in his eye.

"You don't believe that, do you?" he asked; it sounded like he already knew the answer.

"Not for a minute," replied Scabré immediately. The MP returned, and to Scabré's surprise, he was carrying with him, of all things, a lily — pure white, stippled in red.

"I found this with the inventory list," he muttered curiously, "Strange…"

"Let me see that list, will you?" asked Keo; Scabré was not sure why he had asked: Keo was a first lieutenant, this MP only a sergeant. But ask he did, and the MP handed it over. Keo perused it for a moment before adding, "Okay, sergeant, I think you can go back to your post; leave that flower here, though: It might be evidence."

"Yes sir," the MP replied; he shuffled away, looking glad to be rid of the hubbub. Keo turned to Scabré:

"Go get Marius; I'll get Spyro."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Spyro followed Keo down the winding hallways that formed the lower levels of the Temple's southern wing, eventually decamping onto the courtyard where the ruptured container lay.

Spyro had expected worse: He had expected to see twisted metal wreckage covered in soot and still smoking, with charred detritus lying about. On the contrary, this was perhaps the cleanest explosion scene that he had ever witnessed: no residual soot or debris (on the outside at least), minimal scorching, and the container itself was only burst open in one spot, almost as though something immensely strong had punched its way through; it was missing one wheel, but Spyro immediately spotted that lying off to the right.

Keo had already told him about what had happened, and how the medical teams had responded and rushed the victims off to an operating theater. He had also told him how the MP had found the lily with the inventory list, and how Keo had immediately come to get him.

"I don't understand," Spyro muttered, "I thought that the lily was supposed to signify someone's death, but from what you've said, there were no mortal injuries."

"I dunno, but I figured you'd wanna see it for yourself — plus, this inventory list puzzles me: You know I was no good at chem…" Spyro grinned; that was true: Keo had been terrible at it. He had learnt it, to be sure, but only barely.

"Where's the list?"

"Right here," Keo said, picking up the list from where he had left it and handing it to Spyro. Spyro scanned it quickly, already noticing what could have caused an explosion — or at the very least, a strong fire:

"White fuming nitric acid," he said, "is a strong oxidizer — if a fire started, it could've turned nasty pretty fast, and all of that heat in a confined space…"

"But these containers are designed to withstand accidental detonations and deflagrations," Keo objected, staring perplexedly at the ruptured container, "And it only blew up in one spot."

"Suggests a structural weakness," said a burly, thickly accented dragon, appearing suddenly with Marius and Scabré, "If it had been a defect in the manufacturing, it likely would have affected the entire container — unless that wall was too thin." Spyro glanced at the intelligence officer, who immediately explained:  
"This is Lieutenant Brontos; he's part of the Bureau of Ordnance and Explosives Science in the DMI's research wing. He's…a friend of mine," Marius added delicately; Spyro took the hint: Lieutenant Brontos could be trusted.

"Yes sir — may I?" Brontos asked, leaning towards the container. Spyro nodded, and the officer went to work, scrutinizing every inch, running his claws gently along the scorched metal, muttering to himself.

"Strange…" he said suddenly, pausing in his investigation, "Silver dust."

"Silver?" repeated Spyro; he glanced at the inventory: "There was nothing silver in there."

"There's not much of _anything_ in here, sir," quipped Brontos, "Everything that was in here was scorched — what was in here, anyway?" Spyro scanned the list again:

"WFNA, hydrofluoric acid, zinc and platinum metal, um…various organic solvents — acetone, some diethyl ether…"

"Well that explains the scorching," Brontos murmured. "The ether alone would have ignited in the wake of an explosion, and the emission of heat and light would've decomposed the HNO3 and accelerated the combustion… But nothing silver?"

"Nothing silver."

"Well that's strange… Wait a minute!" Brontos said abruptly; he peered at the silver dust – which Spyro could see glittering inside the container – again, then just as abruptly turned back around. "This reminds me," he said, "of some experiments we did not long ago to test a new method of storing shock-sensitive explosives.

"We started off with a simple one: sodium azide. We put it in a specially constructed bag – just a small amount of it – and disturbed the bag with measured amounts of force, to see just how much the bag could resist before enough was transferred to the sodium azide to cause it to explode. When it finally did, the bag contained the blast force completely, though anything within the expansion range was quite violently knocked aside."

"And?" asked Spyro, not sure how this was related.

"_And_, sir, each time, when we unsealed the bag to reset the experiment, we had to dispose of the sodium metal left behind from the decomp…just like the silver metal here. We eventually stopped using sodium azide: It was too sensitive, and the sodium product was too dangerous…" Brontos trailed off, perhaps realizing that he was rambling and that he had already made his point.

"You think there was silver azide in here?" Spyro asked, perturbed: Silver azide was a highly explosive, toxic, and extremely shock-sensitive chemical that was used in very controlled ways in military explosive devices, usually to trigger secondary detonations. Spyro remembered receiving a memo about it: Its use in bombs was being questioned due to its sensitivity to heat and shock.

"That would explain the residue," Brontos prevaricated, "And silver azide's much more powerful than sodium azide: The detonation of even a small amount of it would certainly have been enough to blast out a structural weakness in the container."

"And if there was no weakness?" asked Keo; Spyro knew him too well to miss the suspicious note in his voice.

"Well, these containers are too sturdy to be destroyed by simple silver azide, especially since, judging from the volume of the residue, there wasn't much of it — after all, they were built to carry explosives and such."

"Not such sensitive ones," Marius remarked quietly.

"True, but much more powerful ones."

"Thank you, Lieutenant, you have been very helpful," Spyro said almost curtly, "Would you mind leaving us? Marius…" Marius nodded and escorted Brontos away; Scabré, looking somewhat out of place, followed, leaving Spyro alone with Keo.

"What are you thinking?" Spyro asked, rounding on the Fire dragon, who was staring almost dangerously at the container.

"If that container," he said slowly, "didn't have any structural deformities, that means that it was sabotaged. There's no silver azide on the inventory, which means it was smuggled in, and since it's so shock-sensitive, it would've had to have been done some time before the container arrived here." Spyro suddenly had a nasty thought:

"Keo…where did this shipment come from?"

"Warfang." He paused, and Spyro could see that the same thought had occurred to him: "You think that this is the assassin's work?"

"It certainly fits."

"So that's what that white powder was that he snatched from Strix Laboratories?" Keo asked. Spyro shook his head:

"No, silver azide is colorless." Then he remembered Brontos's story: "…but sodium azide isn't! I'll bet you that that was _sodium_ azide — just dissolve it and mix it with silver nitrate and you'll have silver azide!"

"What was sodium azide doing in a lab like that?" Keo asked, "If it's too weak to be an explosive and too strong to be much else, why was it there?"

"Solutions of it are used as biocides," Spyro said absently; it was all making sense now — but… "How could he have sabotaged the container and then slipped the silver azide aboard safely? He'd have to have done it…almost right before the container arrived." Keo took the list from Spyro and flipped through the pages a bit.

"This shipment's three days late," he muttered suspiciously.

"Where was its last stop?"

"Um…rerouted out of…Permotta." Permotta was a small checkpoint on the Silver River to the southwest of the Temple, not far from where the river passed into the Enchanted Forest; it had been cursorily assembled to act as a relay point for shipments from the far south, such as from Warfang.

"I think we owe Permotta a visit," Spyro said darkly.

"I'll go," Keo offered seriously, "You showing up would make it too obvious." Spyro felt like objecting, but Keo was right; discretion was still a must.

"All right, I'll dig around here — but be careful, Keo," he told his best friend, "This might well be another trap." Keo grinned wilily, blue eyes glittering.

"Don't worry about me, Spyro — I'll be fine." He turned around and headed out the gate through which the booby-trapped shipment had arrived, spread his wings, and lifted off into the fast-darkening sky. Spyro could not quell the fear that he had been wrong: that the fire in the painting had not represented Sparx, that it really represented Keo…

…that he had just sent his best friend to his death.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"Okay everybody, gather around under this tree here," Fleur called merrily to her students; the two dozen or so of them – all of them somewhere around two years of age – clustered under the widespread canopy of an enormous oak growing in one of the Temple's spacious central gardens. "Now, children, we're going to be taking a look at several different herbs out here. It is crucial for you to be able to recognize plants that are healthful and plants that are harmful." Fleur paused to prune back the maternal tone that she always found herself using with the students, whom she called _children_ even though they would be nearing teen years quite soon.

"Um, Doctor Fleur?" asked one somewhat impish little boy named Saklaro with a curious tone somehow simultaneously timid and audacious, "Why are we out here when it looks like it's about to rain?" The sky _was_ quite forbidding: An expanse of nearly perfect blackness pricked with little flashes of gray light indicating lightning, and roiling with waves of ferocious winds, and rocked with thunder, it was hardly conducive to a pleasant learning environment. Still, it was technically not inclement weather, as rain was not expected until afternoon, so…

"Well, Saklaro, it is not raining _yet_, and we have things to learn today," she replied in the gently scolding voice of a mother; she caught herself, paused, and resumed more naturally, "Besides, if it does rain on us, we're under the oaks, and the door is only a few yards over that way." She pointed to her right – the children's left – where there was indeed a door leading into the Temple.

"Now," she continued, pointing now to her left at a rectangular patch of short plants grown in highly meticulous plots, "here we have several different types of herbs, some dangerous, some not, some medicines…some poisons."

"What's that pretty purple one there?" asked a little girl in the back. Fleur glanced in the direction she was indicating with her tiny paw.

"That," she said very seriously, "is nightshade; you do not want to mess with that plant: It is deadly poisonous." The little girl, alarmed, snatched her paw away as though the plant might attempt to bite it off; Saklaro piped up again, this time genuinely quizzical:

"So why do we grow it here?"

"Because we use its juices to make antivenins," Fleur explained, adding quickly, "Antivenins are chemicals that we use to cure poisons. From the nightshade flower, we can produce antivenins powerful enough to cure almost all minor toxins and many major ones. "Now," she continued on a lighter note, "who can tell me what this is?" She pointed at a spiky, frosty-colored shrub that looked like it was draped in ice crystals even though it had not rained all morning and the temperature had been reasonably warm.

"Wormwood," replied Rose without hesitation.

"That's right, wormwood," Fleur said with a beaming smile. Rose had always had a good eye for plants… "Now, wormwood is a medicinal herb; we use it quite often to make simple remedies for stomach problems. When you have a bellyache, the nurse in the infirmary will probably give you an infusion of wormwood." Just then, a large dragon appeared, his crimson eyes flickering gravely.

"Doctor Fleur," he said in a low, grim tone, "you are requested in surgery in Operating Room D1. I have been sent to substitute for you as instructor." Fleur was unsure of how to respond; she was rather flustered: Though it was true that she was an M.D., her principle focus had been on botanical pharmacology, not surgery. When she was honest with herself – as she usually was – she was a mediocre surgeon at best, unlike Doctor Arial, who was undoubtedly already in the OR, who was a superb surgeon and physician, and who had aced med school, unlike Fleur, who had struggled, even though they both had attended at the same time (despite Fleur's being a few years older than her).

On top of all of that, this dragon was being rather terse, and she did not recognize him as any of the substitutes that she had ever met.

"V-Very well," she stammered, taking her leave.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"Didn't we just have an exam on this, sir?" asked Asterax somewhat snippily as Captain Asperverus trooped the entire class out to a courtyard in the southeastern corner of the Temple's central sector.

"You had an exam on the _theory_," Asperverus replied in a wintry tone that matched the rising chill in the air, "The theory is useless unless you can put it effectively into practice. This will do." They stopped on the eastern edge of the courtyard, at the periphery of which was a door that led back into the Temple.

Lucas glanced up at the sky, hoping that they wouldn't be outside too long: The blackish clouds overhead promised rain, and lightning was already ripping its way through the heavens, accompanied swiftly by resounding blasts of thunder.

"Through this door," lectured Asperverus, "You will find half a dozen rooms that are currently vacant. I am going to give each of you a card on which you will find a physical description to match which you must magically alter your own appearance. I will be checking down to the smallest detail. Since there are only six rooms available and fifteen of you, we will go five at a time. First will be…" His steely blue eyes swept over them, searching out the victims:

"Emvray, Asterax – for your smart mouth – Lyotte, Vohda, and…Lucas." _Figures_, Lucas thought, mentally rolling his eyes. Captain Asperverus approached the students he had named and handed each a card. Lucas looked at his:

_SCALE COLOR: auburn, one darker brown spot on the forehead, slightly set to the left_

_EYE COLOR: pale blue, the shade of morning sky_

_HEIGHT: at your discretion, but average_

_WEIGHT: slightly overweight — again, your discretion_

_HORNS: curved backward slightly, very thick_

_TAIL: short and thick; tail-blade small and slightly curved, mildly serrated near the base_

_EVERYTHING ELSE: your discretion, but make it believable_

_Great_, he thought. _'One darker brown spot on the forehead, slightly set to the left'? What the heck, how am I supposed to do that_?! The color in general, the height and weight, the horns — those he could do, those were simple; but a _spot_? He would have trouble with that serrated tail-blade thing, too; tail-blades were hard…

"Get moving, you five!" barked Asperverus after they all stood around dopily for a few moments, staring at their respective cards. Asterax and Lyotte both wore almost dangerous expressions as they read their criteria — then again, Asterax was hard to read – even for Lucas, who had grown up with him – and Lyotte, an almost savage Ice dragoness, _always_ looked dangerous.

They trooped off through the door to go to their respective rooms, and Lucas felt, as he always seemed to when Asperverus gave them such trials by fire, as though he were walking to his own execution.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"All right — nurse, close up here. I'm free!" Arial called to the room at large, removing her bloodied gloves; a passing nurse replaced them almost immediately.

"I got one over here I could use some help with!" called another doctor.

"What is it?" Arial asked, striding briskly over to the operating table. The doctor pointed at the exposed chest cavity of his patient, a rather large male whom Arial remembered seeing near the container and triaging as the most seriously wounded.

"Nothing too bad up till now, but he's got a piece of shrapnel wedged there, lying against the aorta. I can't tell if it's penetrated or not, but if it has — "

" — then this could turn nasty really fast," Arial finished grimly as a nurse passed her a hemostat. "Okay, let's do this…"

Just as she leaned over the patient to assist in the surgery, the one of the OR doors opened, and she recognized the figure of Doctor Fleur, masked and gowned.

"Fleur?" she said, pausing; the doctor next to her paused as well. "What are you doing here?" Fleur's bright red eyes looked confused over the mask.

"You asked for me!" she said, "Some dragon came and fetched me from my class, said that you had requested me here!" Arial shook her head.

"I never sent for you, Fleur."

"Well, somebody's gotta answer for this!" Fleur declared with a mixture of perplexity and indignation; still scrubbed, masked, and gowned, she whirled around and stormed out of the OR.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Fleur stomped her way rapidly back to where she had left her class, both furious and worried: Why would that dragon have lied to her? The only plausible answer was to get her away from the kids, and _that_ made her extremely uneasy: What could he have wanted with them?

Turning a corner and coming out onto the courtyard where she had left her class, she saw that they were all still there…alone! She ran up to them and asked the first student she came to – Rose – what was going on.

The little dragoness replied that the mysterious "substitute" had taught them about herbs for a few minutes, asked them some questions, and then left suddenly, telling them to wait for Fleur to get back.

"How long has he been gone?" Fleur asked.

"Just a few minutes," Rose answered; something glittered on her thin chest.

"What's that, Rose?"

"Oh, this? He gave this to me for answering a question right." Fleur looked: It was a little pendant suspended from a silver chain, depicting a black, blue-eyed wolf.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Lucas grimaced as Captain Asperverus looked him over with his fierce, aquiline gaze.

"Your tail-blade is not serrated, Lucas," he pointed out. Lucas knew better than to reply. "And the dark spot on your forehead is set in the wrong direction — I meant _your _left, not mine… Other than that, well done." Lucas accepted the rare tidbit of praise and moved away as fast as possible; he had been last in line to be inspected…of course.

"Heh, you look kinda ridiculous," sniggered Asterax, whose normally subfuscous scales and sanguineceous eyes were replaced with deep blue and waxy yellow respectively, "What'd you do? Contract diabetes suddenly?" He poked at the extra adipose tissue that Lucas had been forced to take on. Before Lucas could retort, Emvray, who was smaller than usual and wearing pale celadon scales and watery gray eyes versus his normal black and light cyan, quite seriously replied:

"My cousin is diabetic."

"Just a joke, Emvray," Asterax muttered apologetically.

"Don't worry about it," said Emvray, suddenly light-toned, "She jokes about it all the time, too." Lucas stared at him, nonplussed. Asterax just shrugged.

"You five can return to normal now," Captain Asperverus called to them as he sent the next five victims – whom he had just selected – into the Temple. Lucas, Emvray, and Asterax (and Lyotte and Vohda, who were standing off to the side) shed their guises; Asterax looked at Lucas:

"Hmm… You were better-looking the other way!" Lucas swatted him on the head with his paw.

"Shut up!" he quipped good-naturedly, failing to repress a smirk. "Hey," he remarked suddenly, "Who's that?" A singularly grave-looking dragon with deep red eyes was conversing in a hushed voice with Captain Asperverus; a moment later, the captain left at a brisk and purposeful pace, and the newcomer strode over to Lucas and the others.

"The captain was called away on some fairly pressing military business," he reported in a voice that was like the bland growl that a rock would use if it were to speak, "I will be substituting for him until he returns." The dragon suddenly paused and made as though looking for something on his person. "Oh, I've forgotten it again. Uh — you," he said, pointing at Lucas, "would you go through that door over there, down the hall, through the last door on the right, and find my square bag? I left something in it, and I'd rather not have it just lying around — it is fairly valuable."

"Yes sir," Lucas muttered, though he found it a strange request. He crossed the courtyard to the northern end and entered the Temple through the door that the dragon had indicated; he walked down the hall to the last door on the right, opened it, and went into the cramped, dimly lit room. It looked like one of those miscellaneous rooms consigned to various purposes as need should dictate; there were dozens of them all over the Temple.

Even in all the clutter of desks, books, papers, and boxes, Lucas spotted the bag fairly quickly: It was perched on a stack of boxes almost directly opposite the door; he crossed over to it, opened it, and looked inside.

He didn't have to search long to find the valuable that the dragon had described so laconically: It was the only thing in the bag. Lucas pulled it out carefully and again thought about the strangeness of the request. _Why would he be so concerned that someone would steal _this?

For that matter, why was it here, in a bag in the corner of a room that, quite frankly, didn't look like it had been used for a few weeks? What had the dragon been doing in here? Lucas felt a weird, almost prickly feeling in the pit of his stomach; his scales tingled as though rippled with electricity. But what was he to do? _Might as well just give him his pendant thing and be done with it_…

That was what was in the bag: a pendant suspended from a black chain, depicting an equally black and blue-eyed wolf.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Keo descended rapidly, shooting through an opening in the canopy of trees, landing a few paces from where the swamp ended and the little checkpoint of Permotta began.

It really was a sad little establishment, at least in this weather: little more than a ramshackle and motley collection of buildings surrounded by a thin palisade that served mainly to keep small swamp creatures out. The dark sky above cast a rather deathly pall over the place, and with the wind howling overhead, flashes of lightning sending bursts of light crashing over the earth, and booms of thunder rocking the very trees themselves, Permotta looked as desolate and forlorn as one of those graveyards that so often figured into childhood fairy tales.

Keo smirked at that idea: He had never been one for fairy tales… What did worry him was the silence: A shipping checkpoint was not usually so quiet, even a small one like this. Then again, this weather wasn't exactly conducive to shipping…

_Well, let's do this_. Keo stepped out of the trees and warily approached the palisade; he glanced around before opening a little gate and entering the checkpoint proper. Looking around, the desolation became even more conspicuous: Not a person was in sight, and the silence grew deeper as the thunder and wind above grew louder.

_Uh-oh_… Keo stalked briskly over to a small hut-like building…the wall of which was streaked with blood. Keo ran a claw through it. _Still warm_. That was a bad sign: It was cold out; for the blood to be warm, it would have to have been very recently shed. _Very_ recently…

Keo glanced about him, now on full alert; the checkpoint was as deserted as ever. Keo stalked around the hut, found the door, examined the lock, and broke it; he stepped inside. The hut was only one room, stacked to the ceiling with files arranged in shelves and stacks; off to the right was a desk on which sat a small pile of papers, disarranged and bloodied. A scent struck his nose.

Keo walked briskly over to the left side, clearing the room as he went; as he turned around the corner of a large and rather ugly shelf, he spotted the source of the scent: A dragon lay dead there on the ground, a little river of blood winding its way around the shelf and back the way Keo had come.

He stooped to examine the body: It was still warm; there was a bruise near the temple and a huge gash in the throat. Keo had seen that combination of wounds before; it was used by soldiers to silently eliminate an enemy from the front. A blow was placed on the temple to knock the enemy unconscious, and then the throat was slit for good measure.

Keo stood and followed the blood trail back to its source: a pond of crimson that had drenched a large number of papers that were arranged in a block on the floor, as though the victim had been perusing them when he had been killed; when he had fallen from the blow to the temple, his body had disarranged some of the files on the left.

Keo grimaced and left the hut, stepping carefully back out into the cool, wet air. The temperature was strangely low out here, particularly for a summer morning. It had taken him about two hours to get here from the Temple due to the weird wind patterns, so the morning had advanced sufficiently that the temperature should have risen.

Somehow that incongruity made Keo more uneasy than did finding a dead body, whose warmth told him that he had been murdered within the last two – maybe three – hours. He shook it off; he had a job to do: He had to clear the entire outpost. _That shouldn't be hard_, he thought wryly. _There're only a few buildings here_.

He checked each of them, one by one, finding nothing out of the ordinary; finally he came to the last one, a large, blocky structure that resembled a barrack, and indeed, judging from the weatherworn (and therefore slightly illegible) sign near the door, it was the lodging quarters for the dragons who ran the little outpost.

Keo checked the lock: It was unsealed. He opened the door and stepped inside. Immediately he was met with the odors of at least four other dragons, whose lifeless bodies he quickly spotted in the left corner of the room, along with some foul smell that struck him as that of some sort of bleaching agent.

Keo searched the room very carefully and quietly; finding nothing, he went to the door on the left side of the room; the bodies lay a few paces from it. He pressed his ear to the door and heard nothing; he opened it and saw nothing — nothing but an empty dormitory, on the opposite side of which there was another door. Keo marched over to it swiftly and listened.

This time he heard something: two dragons conversing…

"…heard those noises, didn't you?"

"Eh? What noises?"

"The banging and stuff!"

"I didn't hear no bangin'!"

"You're deaf, you are! There was a bang earlier, just a few minutes ago!" _That must've been when I forced the lock on that door_…

"You're dreaming stuff up."

"No I ain't!"

"C'mon, we're supposed to be cleaning house!"

"What's the boss doin', anyway? Why're we left holdin' the bag?"

"Shut up and get back to work! We've only got a few minutes 'fore we gotta be outta here!" The voice dropped: "Remember what the boss said, they'll be comin' here soon." _They're already here_, Keo thought savagely; he kicked open the door and followed it with a stream of fire, simply to add some fear and confusion.

He raced into the room and scanned it quickly: The two dragons who had been speaking were standing over by a desk to his right; canisters of the same malodorous agent he had detected a moment ago were sitting nearby with the air of having been recently put to use; and the desk itself was littered with papers.

Keo lunged forward and caught the first dragon, who did not even have time to respond, with a neat slice to the neck; dodging the cataract of blood, he ducked the second dragon's blow, seized his foreleg as it passed, and, taking it with both paws and rearing up so as to put all of his mass behind the blow, rammed his head straight against the knee joint; the leg snapped quickly and easily, with that strange sound that was musical and grotesque at the same time.

Before the dragon could even howl in pain, Keo had swung his foreleg up, curled his head into the crook of his leg, seized the back of his head with his paw, and wrenched; a rolling, crackling sound signified that the dragon's neck had snapped. He let the body drop to the ground and looked around, his heart racing from adrenaline.

There was no one else in the room, no sound other than the burbling of the first dragon's blood as his fast-dying heart continued to pump blood out of his severed carotid artery. Keo glanced at the bleaching agent: mercuric acid. _Pretty cheap_, he thought. _Effective, though…_

Examining the table, he noticed that most of the papers were letters, and at the corner of the desk was a canister of butane. Apparently the dragons had not yet sterilized _these_ data… Keo flicked through the letters briefly, keeping an ear out in case anyone had heard the ruckus and was coming to investigate.

Most of the missives were innocuous — pertinent to the quotidian chores of running a shipping outpost. From the addressee mentioned in most of them, he determined that this little room was the superintendent's office. _Why would they need to burn these_…?

Then, looking beneath the top layer of letters, he saw why: Several of the underlying missives were written in a scrawling orthography greatly disparate from the neatly blocked writing on the other letters. _What have we here_…?

Most of the suspect letters were in a crude, Frankish-looking language that Keo could not decipher, but a few were in English: He picked up one and read it carefully.

His heart stopped.

Keo dropped the letter and raced from the room, ignoring protocol, ignoring the fact that he had yet to secure the area, ignoring the bodies lying on the ground, not even checking to see if the four bodies he had seen earlier had been marred by the mercuric acid he had found; he raced out of the office, through the dormitory, through the vestibule where the four bodies lay, and darted out the door, spreading his wings and rocketing off into the sky.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Lucas stared uneasily at the sky, the fierce winds whipping at the wolf medallion hanging from his neck. The weird dragon who had requested that he fetch it had apparently vanished while Lucas had been absent, without even a word; Captain Asperverus had returned only moments later, rather miffed: Evidently, there had been no pressing military business that had required his attentions. Before anyone could attempt to sort out these puzzling events, however, Asperverus had rallied the class together and continued with their lesson.

He had advised Lucas to keep the wolf pendant until they could turn it in to the proper authorities. It was not, after all, an exigent matter — as far as they knew, anyway. So Lucas had looped it around his neck. It felt a little portentous, but otherwise he didn't notice it much.

Their TNT lesson had ended only an hour or so after that, and Lucas had moved on to the first of his Flying courses. He and Asterax, who were in the class together (Emvray was in a more specialized class, being a Wind dragon), stood with about a half dozen others on one of the highest northeastern parapets, overlooking the forested plains that bordered the Temple on that side.

The sky was nearly pitch black, and the wind was howling so loudly that Lucas could hardly hear Major Ventair, the class professor (they preferred the term _magistrate_), a well-muscled and fairly handsome Wind dragon with crystal-clear blue eyes and brilliantly white scales; he had formerly been Cynder's pupil when he had first come to the Temple around two decades ago, and he was only a couple of years older than Lucas's father, Spyro, with whom he was good friends.

Ventair was a little bit more intimidating than the other magistrates: He had been a leader of one of the fabled Airborne Special Warfare Groups, elite, eight-man teams of spec-ops soldiers who operated in adverse weather and, obviously, specialized in aerial warfare.

Ventair was shouting instructions to the shivering students now, his keen eyes scrutinizing the tempestuous skies. Apparently, the objective of today's lesson had originally been to learn to fly in formation, but Ventair, almost giddy at the prospect of a more intensive training exercise given the less than auspicious weather conditions, had decided to alter the regimen: They would be engaging in some sort of free-for-all dogfight.

"A dogfight…in conditions like _this_, sir?!" shouted Asterax incredulously, straining to raise his quiet voice over the howling winds.

"Yes!" bellowed back the major, "You need to have precise control in a dogfight, and conditions like this'll keep you on your toes!"

"Or plant us on our faces!" replied Asterax. Ventair grinned.

"We'll see."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"Dad?" Spyro looked up from the book on nitrogen chemistry that he was perusing outside the OR; Arial had just walked out the door. His heart nearly broke, as it always did when he beheld her immediately after surgery, at the almost haggard look in her green eyes. It didn't help that those were her mother's eyes, so Spyro felt the pain twice.

But usually she only looked this tired (she hadn't even removed her mask and gown, both of which were spattered with blood) after long, major surgeries, especially if they were combat wounds. This had been an accident, and he had thought that the wounds had not been that severe: It had only been a little more than three hours ago…

"Are you okay, kiddo?" he asked, placing the book to the side and rising. He could tell by the rearrangement of her facial muscles that she was giving him a thin smile beneath the mask.

"Yeah, fine. It was just a long night last night, and then this accident — and I still have a lot of work to do…" She sighed. "I'm being petulant. I'm fine, dad, really." Spyro smiled warmly at her; he walked up and slipped the mask and gown off of her, tossed them into one of the half dozen hampers lying around the room, and hugged her.

"Thanks," she muttered tiredly, sitting down; she glanced at the book, on the left-hand page of which there was blazoned a detailed structural model of the nitric acid molecule, and Spyro could tell by a flash in her eyes that she had inferred the purpose of his reading that book. "So…do we know what _caused_ the accident?"

"Silver azide explosion, accelerated by white fuming nitric acid and diethyl ether." He paused before adding, "From the looks of things, it was intentional." Arial looked vaguely shocked, but he guessed that she was too burnt out to feel much of anything clearly. "How did the surgery go?" he asked gently. She cast him a doleful look.

"Most of the wounds were superficial — burns, cuts, a bit of bruising from the concussion force, one dislocated shoulder. We had a little bit of trouble with one patient: A piece of shrapnel had nearly transected his aorta." Spyro said nothing: He sensed that something was bothering her, something that she was about to add… "And…we had one death." Spyro's heart skipped a beat.

"A death?" he repeated, aghast, "But, how — ?"

"We didn't see it," Arial murmured; Spyro knew his daughter too well to miss the lachrymose note in her voice. "A tiny sliver of metal – no bigger than a hair – went through the base of his left eye and lodged in the brain. He was smiling one moment — dead the next. We tried to resuscitate, but…" She trailed off, rubbing her eyes like she had done as a little child when she was tired. Spyro didn't know what to say; there _was_ nothing to say. The abruptness, the coldness of death was just too oppressive.

"He had a family, too…a son born just three days ago…" Spyro felt like weeping alongside his daughter, for there were tears now rolling silently down her cheeks. Before he could think of anything to say (that is to say, what felt like an hour later), Arial furrowed her brow and crossed over to the hamper where Spyro had tossed her gown and mask. She carefully fished out the former, rummaged in a pocket, took something out, and replaced the soiled garment. She returned to where Spyro was sitting.

"I found this," she said quizzically, "hanging on the hook where I put my medical shawl when scrubbing for surgery. I don't know what to make of it…" She held out something bright and metallic; Spyro looked, and his heart nearly stopped:

It was a pendant of a black-furred, blue-eyed wolf, suspended from a silver chain.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Spyro swept straight past Marius's secretary, knocked, and burst into the office after a nanosecond's pause. Marius and Cognova were both there, poring over a sea of documents, and both looked up, alarmed.

"Marius," Spyro began feverishly, Arial, who was behind him, slipping quietly into a corner, gazing at her father with the same alarm as the intelligence officers, "We need to talk, _now_!" In response to the captain's unasked question, he held up the wolf pendant; Marius's keen eyes widened slightly, and Spyro could tell that he understood.

"Lieutenant Colonel," Spyro said imperiously, rounding on the director of the DMI, "Go find my daughter Rose, bring her here. Send Marius's secretary to fetch Lucas."

"Yes sir," replied Cognova almost skittishly, apparently unnerved by Spyro's uncharacteristic bluntness. He raced from the room. The moment that the door clicked closed behind him, Spyro launched into an almost frantic explanation of what had happened in the past three hours — as far as he knew, anyway.

"There's something going on here, Captain," he ended in heated direness. Marius nodded calmly, but his eyes were stormy.

"Strange… Captain Asperverus – your son's TNT teacher, sir – came in here about three hours ago, claiming that he had been told that _I_ had sent for him, but I had never made such a request."

"Lucas's teacher?" repeated Spyro; he thought his heart might break from beating too fast. "What if — ?"

"But TNT is over by now, sir," Marius interrupted confusedly, "Lucas would be in some other class…"

"He only has Flying and Toxicology left…" Spyro murmured; the schedules had only been published fairly recently, so he wasn't sure which Lucas was slated to take first.

"The rudimentary Toxicology classes are held only a short way from here," Marius pointed out, "I can send someone to — "

"No," Spyro interjected, shaking his head, "Cognova can handle it. We need to stay here…together." He glanced at Arial, who was utterly perplexed; she – like her siblings – still had no idea what was going on. Spyro had never told them, fearful that it would terrify them, particularly little Rose, but the escalating situation – and that wolf pendant that Arial had so mysteriously discovered – convinced him that there was no alternative.

The fact that that wolf pendant had been there convinced Spyro also that the assassin – or one of his lackeys – was here, in the Temple; the strange incident with Captain Asperverus only further corroborated what he had suspected ever since Keo had led him to the explosion site over three hours ago.

Spyro just prayed that Cognova and Marius's secretary would reach Rose and Lucas before something happened.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"But _why_ do I have to go see Captain Marius?" Lucas asked exasperatedly as the tightlipped yet decidedly confused-looking secretary led him through the Temple corridors at a brisk pace. She had almost literally yanked him from his Flying class (and he had been doing pretty well, too…), told Major Ventair that his presence was required on Spyro's authority in the office of Captain Marius, and was now shuttling him along, as though he didn't know the way. (He knew Marius well enough, as close as the intelligence officer was with his father.)

Nevertheless, the secretary (he didn't even know her name) continued to pull him down corridors, his wolf pendant bouncing against his chest.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Spyro whirled around as the door opened and Cognova entered with Rose, looking quite frightened, in tow. She raced to her father and huddled against his side, staring at Cognova with the look of terrified perplexity that children had; Spyro draped his wing over her and said to Cognova:

"Thank you, Lieutenant Colonel. Any sign of Lucas and the lieutenant?"

"No sir, but I did confirm on my way back that he is in Flying, not Toxicology. Major Ventair's class is on the opposite side of the Temple, farther than Rose's was." Spyro nodded; a lump had formed in his throat when he felt his little daughter shivering against his leg. Arial crossed over quietly and tried to soothe her.

Spyro glanced at Marius: The intelligence officer was wearing an odd expression, a mixture of epiphany and something almost like anger…

Marius abruptly left the office.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Lucas was just about fed up with this secretary; maybe she was new: She didn't seem to know her way around the Temple very well — she'd led him down possibly the most circuitous route to Marius's office imaginable!

Each time he tried to pipe up about it, though, she'd cut him off and say that they had to hurry, that his presence was required most urgently, that blah, blah, blah…

_This is ridiculous_, he growled to himself as they passed an intersection of corridors: Theirs ran into a walkway that spanned a little lake that had supposedly formed in the western central area of the Temple over centuries of rainfall, and it crossed with a hall that ran around the perimeter of the tower, lined with windows. Lucas wondered why they were taking this route: It led _deeper_ into the Temple, and they would have to ascend two or three levels to reach Marius's office…

_This lady doesn't know what she's doing_, he thought disgruntledly, wrinkling his nose at a weird stench wafting from one of the little supply rooms that lined the windowed hall; they turned down that hall and took a stairwell up. _Finally_, he thought. _Maybe she _does_ know where she's going_…

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Marius returned before Spyro could even consider following him; his expression was so dire – and furious – that Spyro's heart skipped a beat.

"What is it?" he asked quietly.

"I," began the intelligence officer in a voice quaking with rage, "have been an utter _fool_!" He held out a piece of paper to Spyro, who took it. After a moment, he looked up.

"This is a letter from Sefdomai," he declared incredulously, "to a mole inside the Temple!"

"What does it say?" demanded Cognova eagerly.

"Something about a lake…" Spyro muttered; the letter was garbled and incomplete; it looked as though someone had tried to destroy it.

"We do not have time to consider that," Marius interjected gravely, "I found that letter on _my secretary's desk_!" The implication sank in immediately.

"Cognova, take Arial and Rose, and take them to Cynder!" Spyro ordered, unsure whether his heart was still beating, "You _stay there_ with them, understood?"

"It will be done," Cognova declared.

"Marius — you're with me. Let's go!"

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Lucas was just about ready to walk away from this lady: His hopes that she possessed at least some navigational skill had been dashed yet again, as she was leading him back _down_ another stairwell. They reached an intersection and turned northward, onto a hallway lined with windows. A weird smell was wafting along the corridor…

_Wait a minute…_

Before Lucas could react, he felt a blow on the back of his head.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Spyro rocketed down the hall, Marius hot on his heels, racing towards the little lake that sat in the central western area of the Temple. He had entered that mode of thought common to combat, where consciousness faded to thoughts so rapid and intransigent that only after the fact could they even be examined; the only thing of which he was conscious was the blood pounding in his brain.

_Please don't let us be too late_!

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Lucas fell, rolled, and bounded to his feet, only to see a flash of blue and feel a second blow land on his left cheek, sending him careening backward; he found himself pressed against one of those thin wooden doors that the Temple employed in such unfrequented areas; a third blow, much stronger than the first two and directed at his solar plexus, blasted him through the door.

Bleeding a little bit from splinters of shattered wood from the decimated door, Lucas forced himself groggily to his feet, only to experience a fourth blow to his neck, aimed precisely at his trachea, that floored him again.

Spluttering, aching from his confrontation with the door, and vaguely disoriented from the initial strike to the back of his head, Lucas tried again to force himself to stand; a paw planted on his neck impeded that. He simply lay there, trying to get his blurred vision to focus:

When it did, he saw the same blue-scaled, crimson-eyed dragon who had subbed for Captain Asperverus standing over him; it was he who was holding him down; Marius's secretary stood over by the evacuated doorway, looking quite unsure of what to be doing and not a little frightened by her partner's savagery.

"We meet again," the blood-eyed dragon hissed at Lucas, a twisted smile on his face, "And you're still wearing my little augur." He touched the wolf pendant still hanging from Lucas's neck. "How fitting. It appears that your father did not figure out the ruse in time. Too bad…" He lifted Lucas up and slammed him against a wall; little lights popped in front of Lucas's eyes as the dragon placed a claw lazily against his neck; Lucas could feel its coldness.

"Too bad," the dragon repeated, "I actually _liked _you."

Then, possibly only an infinitesimal fraction of a second before the final blow was struck, a streak of fire shot into the room; the perfidious secretary leaped back, letting loose a shrill scream as someone burst into the room. Lucas couldn't see how, but the next second, the secretary was on the ground, unmoving.

The dragon's attention momentarily distraction, Lucas, with what little training he had had, reacted: The dragon had him pinned with his right claw; Lucas lifted his left and pushed the claw away, simultaneously ramming his head forehead, landing a blow straight on the dragon's nose.

He yowled and recoiled, and before Lucas or his rescuer could react, the dragon bolted from the room, leaped with a crash through one of the windows, and vanished into the darkness.

Lucas looked up, breathless, expecting to see his father —

It was not: It was Keo.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Spyro skidded around a corner and shot down the hall; a whistling in the wind and the glitter of glass on the floor told him that one of the windows was broken. He could feel his heart trembling as he raced up to a door, which he could see had been bashed in. Marius was right behind him.

Spyro burst into the room…and saw Keo knelt down by Lucas, who was half sitting, half lying against the wall, looking groggy but alive. Keo looked up as Spyro, so overwhelmed by thankfulness, relief, and hypoxia that he staggered a little as he approached his son.

"Nothing serious," said Keo quietly, "A few cuts and bruises, _maybe_ a mild concussion, but he seems pretty focused."

"He's alive," Spyro managed to say; he hugged his son, who gave him a dazed look.

"So it was her," muttered Marius; Spyro glanced over his shoulder: The intelligence officer was standing over the inert form of his erstwhile secretary, lying to the left of the door.

"Yeah," said Keo darkly; he turned to Spyro: "When I got to Permotta, the place'd been ransacked; from the looks of things, Sefdomai scrubbed it, didn't want us finding much, but I, ah, interrupted two of his goons. From what they hadn't yet destroyed, I figured out his plan and raced back here."

"I'll dispatch a team to secure that outpost," Marius declared; he moved toward the door.

"No," said Spyro severely, "I'll do it myself. Get Captain Polemos, send him to my chamber, have him wait outside with his team." Marius looked alarmed, but he nodded and bowed out of the room.

Only moments later, Cynder and Arial appeared at the door; they both raced over to Lucas, who winced as his mother tried to discern the extent of his injuries; she backed off, and Arial began to examine him.

"What're you doing here, Cynder?" Spyro asked her, "Where's Rose?"

"I left her with Cognova," Cynder answered, "Arial and I came as soon as Cognova told us what was going on. Is Lucas okay?" Spyro had no reply.

"I don't think he's concussed," Arial piped up, peering at her brother carefully, "Just knocked around a bit."

"'M fine," Lucas murmured.

"Arial," Spyro muttered, trying to keep his voice under control, "will you take your brother back to the room and wait there?"

"Sure, dad," she answered softly; helping Lucas to his paws and walked him out of the room. The moment they were gone, Spyro hugged Cynder.

"Are you okay?" she asked, alarmed, "You're shaking like a leaf!" It was true: His entire body was quaking from the overwhelming blow of all that had happened…and from fury. One thing he knew for sure: _No one_ else was going to have to pay for his failures! He was going to catch this assassin…and kill him if necessary.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"But, Spyro — !" Cynder tried to begin again; he swished his tail across her mouth to silence her.

"I'm going to end this, Cynder," he said somberly, "I'm going to end this _today_."

"But — "

"He tried to kill our son, Cynder," Spyro said; even though the volume of his voice had dropped, his severity had increased just as much; she paused. "Who's next? _You_?" His eyes fogged for a moment. He blinked. "I can't take that," he said thickly. Cynder knew him well enough to hear the tears behind those words.

"I can take care of myself, Spyro," she assured him gently, "He won't get me."

"I know that," Spyro said, "He's not gonna try to get you — all of his victims have been weaker than he is, more vulnerable. That makes it all the worse."

"Lucas was the wolf," Cynder reminded him, "The pendant Sefdomai gave him — "

" — and all the others…"

" — but Lucas's had a _black_ chain," Cynder pressed ahead, "The others' were _silver_. He was the last victim, that means that _you're_ the next to die!" Spyro stared at her; she could tell that that thought had already arisen in his mind…and that he had dismissed it, as he always did such threats to his life when they applied to him alone.

"I can take care of myself," he replied flatly.

"I _know_, Spyro, but he's probably already _planned_ for that!" Cynder insisted; she was fearful that he wasn't thinking straight. Spyro wrapped his wings around her and looked her straight in the eye:

"Cynder…" She sighed, defeated. He hugged her. "I've gotta do this, Cynder," he murmured in her ear. There was something in his voice that simply disarmed her: absolute, humble conviction. No fire, no ice, no lightning, no thunder; just…calm. How could she argue with that?

"I…know," Cynder forced herself to admit. Spyro smiled wanly at her.

"I'll be fine, Cynder. Now, I've gotta go; Marius is waiting on me, and Captain Polemos is right outside the door."

"I know," Cynder repeated, a little miserably. Spyro smiled just a little bit more broadly; he kissed her, and Cynder, impelled, reciprocated with a passion as though this were the last time that she would ever feel his lips against hers, his wings enshrouding her in warmth, his sweet, familiar scent wreathed around her —

And then it was over, and Spyro dropped his wings, gave her a last smile, amethyst eyes twinkling, and walked out the door.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"We have my erstwhile secretary," Marius pronounced the word with immense scorn, "locked up; I'm looking for an interrogator right — "

"I'll do it," Spyro interjected almost sharply; he cast the intelligence officer a _Don't argue_ look and returned to gazing out the window at the turbulent, darkening sky. Strange that it should be darkening when it was around noonday… "Just me; you'll observe. Just the two of us." If Marius thought his command strange, he said nothing.

"And Captain Polemos and his team?" he asked slowly.

"I've already sent them to secure Permotta. I will be joining them immediately after interrogating the lieutenant."

"Yes sir. I will head to the interrogation chamber, then."

"Go ahead, Marius…I'll be with you shortly." Marius nodded and left. The moment he was alone, Spyro reflected:

_Am I doing this right_? he wondered. _What if Cynder was right? What if this is all a trap?_

_Then I'll meet him there_, he thought savagely. The sky outside was rent with lightning.

One way or another, this would end today.


	14. Deathly Flowers

**CHAPTER 14**

"Deathly Flowers"

Cynder stared blankly at the caliginous sky above, boiling with rain and webbed with lightning; thunder trumpeted like a clarion; the fierce wind ravaging the swamps and forests beyond the balcony where Cynder stood made it appear as though the very Earth trembled beneath the storm.

It had not yet started to rain.

Cynder didn't like anything about this storm: The wind, the lightning, and the thunder all promised rain, but there was no rain to be seen; it was unnatural, weird…ominous. What was the meaning of it?

She only briefly considered the weather, though: Her thoughts were on Spyro.

That same fear that she had felt in the Enchanted Forest – an overwhelming terror for his life – had returned in full force; she felt paralyzed by it, but she sensed that she should _do_ something…but…what?

Spyro had made up his mind, and she knew better than to try and dissuade him of his chosen course of action; worse still, she suspected that he was right: What else could he do?

She certainly understood his fears: She knew what it was like to know that others were suffering because of her and to be unable to stop it. She knew the despair, the self-loathing, the fear, the anguish. They were all too familiar, specters of her past life.

That was part of why she was so scared for Spyro: She hated – absolutely hated, with every ounce of strength that she possessed – to see him so torn apart by those selfsame sinister forces that had once held her in their stony grip. She knew what that was like, and she knew how dangerous it was.

Spyro was a lot stronger than she had been, she knew; he was too strong to succumb, but she was scared of what might happen to him regardless. But how could she help? She had resigned herself to not get in his way — whatever fears she felt, she trusted him.

She had no idea how he intended to resolve in one day a conflict that had consumed the past week in turmoil, but she had seen that hard, almost terrible glint in his eye. She knew that look: It was a look of power, of resolution, of conviction, of indefatigability; there was no swerving him from his course now. She was worried, rather, about what would meet him along the way.

Spyro was on a mission, and she knew him well enough to know that he would accomplish it; the question was: _What will be the price_?

…Would this cost him his life?

Cynder shuddered. She swore that she heard, even in the furious din of the tempest, even in the air dashed with gales, the sepulchral call of a raven.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Spyro walked into the interrogation room, with its two-way glass; the secretary – a Lieutenant Ferraita (it was strange, he thought to himself dryly, that he had not known her name all this time) – was sitting there at the little metal table that was the room's only furnishing. She looked terrified, and he could see her trembling, the thick, cruel manacles binding her to the table, which in turn was riveted to the floor, tinkling sinisterly.

Spyro looked at this dragoness who had been, perhaps, the author of so many woes, so much grief, and he felt a savage fury rise up in him like fire, setting his blood to boiling; he curbed it: He would need a clear head for this.

He slapped a folder onto the desk, opened it, and spread out a sizable handful of documents.

"Documentation," he said coldly, "of what you have done." He glared at her. "This is just a formality: You are already guilty."

"I — "

"Shut up!" Spyro snarled; he replaced the documents and pushed the folder aside; he leaned in and pierced her eyes with the fiercest gaze that he could manage: "You are lucky that I don't just have you executed right now! You have committed treason, and no law – martial or civilian – is going to acquit you."

"I know," Ferraita blubbered, apparently on the verge of tears, "I — I don't know how to explain…"

"There is no justification you could offer me," Spyro growled icily; the image of Lucas, bruised and bloodied, alive only by a twist of fate, only because Keo had reacted quickly enough, swam before his mind's eye, and that horrible fury rose up in him again, and again he curbed it. "Your only chance at even the remotest degree of clemency is to tell me _everything_…_right_ —_ now_." Ferraita nodded tremulously.

She began to speak, and Spyro listened.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"So…Sefdomai threatened her family?" Marius murmured as Spryo shut the door to the interrogation room, still seething, despite the lieutenant's sob story. "I am not surprised: It is a tactic as old as the hills."

"And at least two people died because of it," Spyro muttered darkly: Ferraita had confessed to direct complicity in the murders of both Hunter and Sparx — and there was, obviously, the fact that she had abetted the near murder of Spyro's own son. Frankly, Spyro didn't care: Had he been in her situation, his first thought would have been to tell someone he could trust, and the Temple was full of people that Ferraita could have trusted — for heaven's sake, she had _worked_ for an intelligence officer!

Now that he thought of it, that had been a bold move on Sefdomai's part: Blackmailing an intelligence officer's personnel was a risky game; bribery was another story: In the intelligence world, bribery was as commonplace as secrecy itself; but _blackmail_…

Blackmail in _any_ case was risky, and it spoke to Sefdomai's audacity – or recklessness…or sheer evilness – that he would attempt such a thing right under the nose of the very officer who was so doggedly investigating him. That made Spyro all the more determined that he had to catch him…_today_.

"And you heard what she said about — " Marius began, a nervous, worried look in his eyes; he was gazing at Spyro like one might gaze at a terminally ill friend.

"Yes," Spyro interrupted, giving Marius a calm, grave look, "I did."

"…And, sir?"

"_And_…"

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Keo grimaced; it had barely been an hour or two since Sefdomai's escape, but Permotta had already been sterilized — that was to say, burnt to the ground: Flames were dancing all around, the buildings enshrouded en fire. Captain Polemos and his men were trying to salvage what they could, but that would likely be little if anything of consequence. _This just sucks_…

"Someone's approaching," called out a sentry; Keo turned and saw a shape that he recognized as Spyro materializing out of the darkness. The purple dragon descended and landed next to Keo.

Keo thought that he looked haggard: There was a drawn, distrait look in his normally vigorous eyes; his shoulders sagged as though he held the very Earth upon his back; and he had that soulful, lugubrious, and almost anguished look of someone who bore an unbelievable burden, who was plagued with an agony that resembled the compunction of the guiltless.

At the same time, there was something icy in the depths of those eyes — or more properly, _stony_: It was resolute and undaunted, and – what contrasted so conspicuously with its concurrent somberness – serene.

Serenity – especially of so cold and pained a nature – was the _last_ thing that Keo had expected to see in Spyro's gaze, but there it was. _What's going on in that head of his_? he wondered.

"Keo," Spyro began in a voice so solemn as to be inscrutable, "Where's Captain Polemos?" Keo nodded with his head towards the barrack-like building where he had found the evidence incriminating Marius's secretary.

"He's trying to save what intel he can from that inferno."

"So Sefdomai beat us here," Spyro muttered pensively, casting his queer gaze about the burning outpost.

"Looks that way," Keo replied neutrally, peering at his friend's physiognomy; he couldn't make heads or tails of it, and that was bad: Spyro was usually as easy to read as an open book — to him, anyway.

"Keo…" Spyro glanced around; the combined roar of the flames and howl of the winds that fanned it and whipped the trees about them into a frenzied and sinister dance effectively rendered their conversation private; no one was nearby. "Keo, I want to thank you…for everything that happened back there with Lucas." Keo started to object, but Spyro gestured for him to be silent. Keo obliged.

"I…I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't gotten there in time — and I know that Lucas wouldn't've made it if you hadn't. He…_I_ owe his life to you." Spyro ducked his head. Keo shook his own:

"I'd gladly do it again, Spyro. You guys are my family — Lucas is like a son to me, too. Well," he added with gentle mirth, "more like a nephew." Spyro grinned thinly.

"Thank you, Keo."

"Any time, Spyro, any time."

"I…" Spyro had suddenly become uncomfortable: He wouldn't meet Keo's eyes, and he was shuffling his paws on the marshy ground; his tail-tip was twitching. Keo waited patiently. "I want you to watch out for Cynder, okay? I just want to make sure that she's safe. Her and Arial…and Lucas and Rose…all of them." Keo walked up to Spyro and hugged him.

"You got it, Spyro." Somehow, he felt as though he were attending a funeral. Spyro nodded solemnly and shook his head as though to clear water from his ears as Captain Polemos approached.

"There's nothing in there," he huffed, his armor tinged with smoke and dust, "Just fire and ashes. I don't know where to start next, sir. This place was our only solid lead."

"We have a new one, Captain," Spyro informed him; Keo was amazed at the stability, the strength, the normality in his voice. Was this the same dragon who had been about to weep on his shoulder?

Captain Polemos appeared not to notice: "A lead, sir? How?" Spyro smiled wilily.

"I just came from interrogating our traitor, and she was most forthright with the details of her treasons: It appears that she was blackmailed by Sefdomai into compliance. We have taken measures to sever that tie, and what remains to us now is to follow up the leads that she gave us."

"Which are, sir?"

"Really only one that we can use," Spyro admitted. "We have a location of a small laboratory that the Raven's Wing – the criminal organization that has been employing her – has been utilizing — they manufactured the silver azide that blew that container," he added to Keo. Polemos appeared confused, but, since Spyro elected not to explain, he did not pursue the matter.

"Where is it?" Keo asked.

"Northeastern corner of the Forest of Noire, near the outlet of the Starry River from the catacombs of the Well of Souls. Captain, round up your men. We have work to do."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

It was weird to be back at the crest of the waterfall that flowed out from the catacombs. He and Cynder had visited the spot a couple of times, but that had been years ago; there was something serene about it, even with the specter of the Well of Souls looming only fifteen yards ahead, in the form of the yawning maw of the catacombs with the river protruding from it like a pale tongue.

The laboratory they sought was only about a quarter of a mile to the northeast, nestled in the crags of the mountains; Spyro could see it from where he stood on the banks of the river: a cluster of buildings peeking out over the tops of the trees.

The mountains sloped upward in that direction, so the lab was situated a good hundred yards higher in elevation than the waterfall where Spyro and the others were perched; Spyro didn't like it: The light was bad because of the storm, but it was still sufficient enough for a careful eye to spot them from the laboratory. Still, this had been their only bearing…

It was strange to wonder if that laboratory had been there for years, even back to the time when Spyro and Cynder had been fighting the Dark Master. Had they flown right past it in coming out of the catacombs? Had Sefdomai been watching them then?

Spyro shook his head: _That's absurd_.

"I don't like this," Captain Polemos muttered, scrutinizing their query, "If we're spotted, this could get nasty pretty fast."

"Assuming it's guarded," Keo remarked.

"I think it is," Spyro said, "Ferraita kept telling me to be careful."

"We could circle around," the captain said slowly, "Sneak up through the trees — but without knowledge of the schematics, this'll be a shot in the dark."

"You and your squad do that anyway," Spyro comanded, "Keo and I'll move in from the air."

"That…will be very dangerous, sir," Captain Polemos noted carefully. Spyro gave him as tranquil a gaze as he could muster:

"I am aware of that, Captain. Besides," he added with a smirk, "I have Keo with me." The Fire dragon grinned. Captain Polemos nodded, though he still looked apprehensive.

"You and your team get into position; when we've engaged the enemy, breach the facility," Spyro ordered, "Be careful, though — we don't want to destroy too much intel." Polemos nodded again, and he and his men slid off into the rocks and the underbrush beyond, creeping their way towards the laboratory; Spyro tracked them for a few moments before they vanished from sight.

He and Keo gave them five minutes before spreading their wings and rocketing nearly straight up, leveling off slightly and heading directly for the lab. It didn't take them long to cover the thousand plus feet that had separated them from it; Spyro glanced down and examined its layout:

There were five main buildings, arranged in a sort of lopsided pentagon, each surrounded by a little palisade perforated by a single gate; there was a sixth, larger palisade encircling the entire facility, and its single opening was at a little backwoods trail that descended eastward into the mountains — it probably had an outlet somewhere in the swamps, or where they bordered the wastelands east of Warfang. The five buildings' palisades were so constructed that they formed an irregular, shapeless sort of courtyard in the center of the complex, in the middle of which was a huge tree.

"Polemos and his men will probably breach from that side," Spyro called to Keo, pointing down with one paw at the western edge of the palisade, where two buildings nearly abutted it. "We'll hit the center and head right."

"Whatever you say," Keo called back, a fervent glint in his blue eyes. They soared over the courtyard, and Spyro scanned the area one last time: no one. He opened his mouth and sent a bolt of lightning into the tree:

Its sap superheating instantly, the tree detonated with immense force, blasting wooden shrapnel in all directions (Spyro and Keo were flying high enough that they weren't hit), backscatter radiation igniting patches of grass. Wisps of steam rose into the air as Spyro and Keo descended and landed lightly in the courtyard.

"That oughta get their attention," Spyro remarked, glancing at the smoldering tree.

"No kidding." Keo pointed; three dragons had emerged from a building to their right, looking alarmed and confused.

Spyro wondered what kind of tree that had been: Its deflagration had already produced immense amounts of smoke, smoke that was churned by the fierce winds, which were also hurling the fire in various directions. One ball of flame was catapulted into a building behind them: The metal edifice did not burn readily, but the thorny palisade surrounding it was quickly devoured in flames, belching more smoke into the air.

One of the dragons started to move towards them, and Spyro snapped back to reality: He shot the first with a bolt of ice through the neck, and the second through the chest; Keo pounced upon the third and slit his throat.

"Let's check that building, quick!" Spyro shouted, racing towards it, "Before the smoke gets too thick." Keo nodded, and together they ran up to the door — still open from when the three now-dead dragons had come out to figure out what the noise was all about.

Spyro looked around, discovering that they were in a chemical storage vault like the one that Sefdomai had robbed in Warfang; there were shelves upon shelves in neat little rows, with indices and labels on everything, and weak little lights – probably halogen, judging from the glow – on the ceiling. There was a thick portière off to the left; judging from the dimensions of the building as far as Spyro had been able to tell, there was a little alcove beyond that curtain.

"I'll check the left, you check the right," Spyro murmured; Keo nodded, and they split up. (That was technically against protocol, but they did not have time to abide by the precise letter of the law.)

Spyro neared the portière, but before he could part its folds to peer within, someone came flying out from the dark alcove, through the portière, hurling himself at Spyro. He was holding an opened glass container, within which there was a liquid that looked clear but slightly tinged with yellow.

Spyro recognized it and jumped sideways as the dragon hurled the nitric acid container haphazardly; the caustic solution spattered against the metal of a nearby shelf, which began to hiss almost violently as the acid reacted with it; Spyro lunged forward and hit the dragon with a powerful blow to the solar plexus, seizing one leg and bending it up at an awkward angle, forcing the assailant to the ground.

Just as he subdued the dragon, who was quivering and whimpering rather pitifully, Keo bounded around the corner.

"Watch the acid!" Spyro warned sharply, nodding at the swiftly corroding shelf. Keo spotted it and skirted around, coming up alongside Spyro.

"How'd that happen?" he asked.

"This jumpy guy decided that hurling around nitric acid was a wise idea," Spyro growled, twisting his prisoner's foreleg just a little; he whimpered in reply.

"Doesn't seem to be the cream of the crop," Keo remarked, half serious, half joking.

"Well, he's gonna tell us where Sefdomai is!" Spyro said in a dangerous voice, again twisting the prisoner's leg.

"I don't know anything!"

"Liar," Spyro spat coldly; he twisted the leg a little farther: The dragon's breathing was now coming in quick, pained gasps. "One more lie and I break it…and start on the other one!"

"Okay, okay!" the dragon cried, his eyes wild with fear, "All I know is that I saw him a few hours ago, in the superintendent's office."

"And where might that be?"

"The building to the right of this one, first floor, northernmost room!"

"Thank you," said Spyro icily; he lifted the dragon forcefully to his feet and shoved him towards the door. "March — you're leading the way."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"Well this is perplexing," Keo remarked, looking around the office of the superintendent, Spyro and Captain Polemos doing the same while the ERSOU troopers held a perimeter outside (and guarded the still trembling prisoner): The room was, while capacious, chaotic and cluttered, with two desks, four bookshelves, and a single lopsided plant. Every inch of available surface was covered in bric-a-brac: papers, folders, clips, candelabra. All the makings of three offices crammed into one.

The owner of the office in question, the superintendent of this little laboratory, lay dead on the floor: His chest cavity had been eaten away by some chemical that had left vicious burns along the edges of the gaping hole, inside of which his viscera were a gnarled mass of corroded tissue, and an unearthly, foul smell was wafting from the corpse.

"He's only got a few hours' head start," Keo mused, grimacing at the body, "Maybe we can find a clue as to where he's — "

"_Aqua regia_," Spyro interrupted suddenly, his voice emotionless; he was pointing at one of the shelves, situated just next to the body, which lay immediately in front of the desk at the back of the room. Keo looked: A little vial – scarcely a fluid ounce – of reddish liquid was perched there on the topmost shelf, as though posed.

"'Royal water'?" Polemos translated, confused.

"It's a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids, used to dissolve noble metals." Spyro crossed over to the vial, which gleamed in the weird lighting (a mixture of the sepulchral sunlight peeking in through the sole window and the flickering of a single lit candle); the candlelight and sunlight were positioned on opposite sides, so that warmth and coolness met in the middle, dividing the room with a sort of mist.

Spyro passed through the mist and into the firelight, his amethyst eyes glistening, his face blurred with shadows; the vial of _aqua regia_ possessed the sinister, dark gleam of blood.

"Is that what killed this guy?" Polemos asked.

"I would think so," Spyro muttered absently; Keo saw that same pensive, solemn look come into his eyes. He seemed to have just realized something.

As soon as Keo noticed it, Spyro whirled around and scanned the room; he went over behind the desk and paused, his eyes fixed on something on the floor. He stooped down and came back up with a single simple painting.

It depicted an utterly black background with a dragon – not much lighter than the shadows around him – whose features were distorted as though by fog. Keo could see when Spyro lifted the painting at an angle to examine it more closely, that there was a piece of paper attached to the back on which was scrawled a series of numbers and a few letters.

Spyro lowered the painting again, and Keo saw something white over the dragon's head, something so brilliantly, so perfectly white that he was surprised that he had not noticed it before, it stood out so starkly against the blackness of the surrounding night: a lily spattered in red.

Spyro was staring at that lily, his eyes stormy and utterly unreadable. Gradually, his expression grew more and more severe; a touch of iciness entered his normally warm eyes, and then, strangely, Keo could have sworn that he saw a ghost of a smile play upon his lips. But then Spyro had snapped back to reality: He briskly detached the paper on the back of the painting, read it, and handed it off to Captain Polemos, leaving the painting on the desk.

"These are coordinates," Spyro said inexorably, "He's toying with us, but we have little other choice than to go along with it. Captain, take these coordinates to your men, get a bearing, and be ready to leave."

"And the prisoner…sir?" Polemos asked. Spyro's face grew stony, and his eyes flashed coldly. Then he turned to Keo, and his gaze softened, and the light in his eyes became warmer.

"Keo will take him back to the Temple." Keo was startled, but Polemos seemed satisfied: He nodded and left; before Keo could breathe a word, Spyro strode up to him and said quietly:

"Keo, I want you to go back to the Temple and watch over Cynder. Don't let her out of your sight, okay?" Keo was confused, but then he remembered the black dragon on the painting: _Cynder_!

"You got it, Spyro."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Keo walked up to Spyro's chamber; the door was closed, which was unusual. He knocked and raised his voice slightly:

"Cynder? Are you in there? It's me, Keo — can I come in?"

"Keo…" came Cynder's voice in reply, "Yeah, come on in…" Keo opened the door.

The room was a curious mixture of darkness and light: Deep shadows lay to the right, fleeing from the wan daylight creeping through the balcony on the left. Cynder stood in the middle of the balcony, just visible from the door, her curvaceous black form curiously silhouetted against the black sky on its upper half and on the whitish, palely sunlit stone on the lower half. She was facing away from him.

Keo crossed the room quietly and sat down next to her. A glance at her face told him that she was much worse for wear than he had anticipated: Her lovely green eyes were murky and fogged; a gloomy, pensive expression marred her alluring features; her beauty was frozen in austerity. It made him feel awkward and plaintive to behold her with such a miserable expression.

He leaned in towards her and quietly related to her what had happened in the past few hours. She listened in silence, her eyes still riveted on the sky, their radiant green depths turbid with something like sorrow.

"And Spyro just went to wherever those coordinates led?" There was something fearful in her tone.

"Yeah," Keo said softly, "He took Captain Polemos with him, though."

"Why would he send you back, though?" Cynder asked, the fear in her voice becoming more pronounced. Keo fidgeted uncomfortably; he wasn't really sure how to answer that one: Spyro had wanted him to look after her, but he presumed that Spyro would not want Cynder to know that. He had made him the same request a few days ago with the same sort of clandestine air.

"He just wants to make sure everything stays okay here," Keo lied pathetically; somehow he had never been able to lie to Cynder. She gave him a stern look that told him that she knew exactly what he was trying not to tell her, but her lovely eyes swiftly turned from sharpness to anguish:

"No…he wants you out of the way," she murmured. Keo was confused: _He wants me out of the way? What's _that_ supposed to mean_…? Cynder didn't elaborate; she simply stared out at the sky again, now looking to be on the verge of tears.

"Cynder, are you okay?" Keo asked her straightforwardly.

"I'm worried about him, Keo," she confessed quite readily, "I…I just have a really nasty feeling that this is not going to turn out well. I felt like I saw him for the last time today." Keo wrapped his wing around her and pressed her warm side against his.

"He'll be fine — you'll see," he told her soothingly, "He knows how to take care of himself, you know."

"Yes, I know," Cynder muttered miserably, "But so did Hunter."

"Hunter was an Avalaran," Keo pointed out, "Spyro's a dragon — a powerful one, at that."

"This isn't a war of claws and teeth," Cynder said darkly, her voice suddenly strong — strong, low, and even. "This is a war of souls."

"Spyro's got a strong soul," Keo countered. Cynder gave him the most miserable look he had ever seen, her lovely eyes misty.

"It's not always the stronger soul that wins."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"She needs psychiatric care," Doctor Ambulo pronounced, peering at Lieutenant Ferraita through the window; the prisoner was sitting at the desk, looking around with an agonized, nervous gaze; she was visibly trembling. Captain Marius glanced at her before returning his attention to the good doctor:

"And she will have it, doctor," he replied coolly, "but only after Spyro gives me the green light."

"Isolation is the _last_ thing that this dragoness needs!" the doctor persisted, "Firstly, we ought to reunite her with her family — "

"Her family has been secured," Marius cut across him smoothly, "We have transferred them to a safe location."

"Then why not bring them here?"

"Spyro's orders," Marius said tersely.

"That does not sound like him," Ambulo retorted, "It is…almost cruel!"

"Look, doctor," Marius said calmly, "I have my orders: No one gets in to see the lieutenant until Spyro returns."

"And when will that be?" Ambulo asked, a touch of testiness entering his voice.

"Most likely before the day is out," Marius replied.

"May I at least assess her condition?"

"Yes…from right here." Doctor Ambulo rolled his eyes.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"Curious," Spyro muttered.

"Quite," concurred Captain Polemos, peering around the little shack to which the coordinates had led them. There was nothing inside except a chest carved of hawthorn, whose latch was fashioned in the shape of a lily and in which there was nothing except a little slip of paper with more coordinates, a little black box, and a small, jeweled serpent.

Spyro was holding up the serpent to the feeble sunlight filtering in through the single window, which backlit the chest. It was fashioned of pure emerald, glistening with a sinister venomous green in the wan light; the eyes were fiery stars of amber, like owl eyes, and the snake was coiled up, as though ready to strike.

Polemos came over, glanced warily at the snake, and then pored over the black box.

"This looks like the explosive container we found at the holding facility up north…"

"In a chest, too…" Spyro murmured, still contemplating the emerald serpent, "We never did find that polyisobutylene…"

"Perhaps it was stored here…" Polemos took out a field explosives residue test, opened the box carefully, making sure that it wasn't rigged, and swabbed the inside. The test swab turned deepest blue. "Explosives," he announced sagely.

"Maybe that's where the rest of the silver azide went," Spyro muttered to himself. The amount that had been used to blow up that shipping container was undoubtedly too small to have been all that had been produced from the sodium azide purloined from Warfang — if the rest of it had been mixed with the polyisobutylene, plus maybe some other explosive agents, it would have the making of a pretty powerful bomb…

"We'll have to be careful from here on out," Spyro cautioned Polemos, "Keep an eye out for any kind of ambush — I doubt that all of these explosives are going to go to waste…" Spyro paused a moment, turning the emerald serpent with the amber eyes over and over in his paw. "Captain, ready the team. We need to get moving."

"Yes sir." Polemos took the slip of paper with the coordinates written on it and left. Once alone, Spyro stood motionless, gazing into the eyes of the serpent.

After a few seconds, he smiled; Spyro dropped the serpent back into the chest; he struck it with electricity, causing it to burst apart into glittering shards of green, its amber eyes alone intact.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"She seems fairly docile," remarked Scabré, an almost hawkish gaze fixed on Lieutenant Ferraita.

"Yes, she's holding together — for now," Marius said.

"Has she not been interrogated yet?" Marius hesitated slightly before replying: Doctor Ambulo had been fairly easy to get rid of – he held Spyro in enough veneration to respect an order from him unquestioningly – but Scabré was a trained police officer, an experienced interrogator. Marius looked him straight in the eye, utterly equanimous.

"We're sweating her out — and interrogation is a little outside of my purview. The sensitivity of this matter necessitates finding a highly commendable officer." The lie came out easily.

"I've had some experience in that regard," Scabré noted, half hintingly. Marius smirked with just the right touch of good humor.

"I'm afraid not," Marius said delicately, "You understand, my friend — this must remain in-house." Scabré laughed.

"Of course — I was kidding." _Good_, Marius thought, reciprocating his friend's laughter as the latter took his leave. _I just hope Spyro knows what he's doing — I can't keep dodging these people all day_.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"I have a bad feeling about this," Polemos commented gravely, staring at the little building nestled in the mountains that bound the Enchanted Forest on the eastern side. It was an unprepossessing structure of roughly hewn stone. Its purpose was indiscernible, much like its shape: In the wind, which was whipping dust and rock particulates up from the mountains and whirling them around in a sort of haze, and from this distance – about a hundred yards, masked behind some boulders – it was difficult to tell the building's exact morphology — it could have been rectangular or pentagonal.

Spyro glanced up at the sky: It was purest black, blacker than he had ever seen, seething with storm clouds ready to burst and pummel the Earth with their pluvial payloads; the barrage was imminent – maybe only a quarter of an hour out – and it would be nasty trying to fly out of these mountains in that kind of weather.

"We don't have much choice," Spyro said solemnly to Captain Polemos, still staring at the sky, "We've got to find this assassin, and this is the only lead we've got."

"That building could be wired," Polemos noted uneasily, peering through the miasmic air, "We still haven't found those explosives…"

"Then we'll check each door," Spyro said with resolute calmness. He gestured with his tail. "C'mon, let's go: This rising storm'll mask our approach." They slipped out from behind the rock and slinked up to the building, stacking up against the nearest door. It was on the southern face, and the wind was a westerly, so they were forced to duck their heads to keep from getting dust and pebbles in their eyes.

"Lieutenant," Polemos hissed to one of his men, "Check the door!" A dragon moved to the door and began to examine it. Spyro glanced around: The little valley – no more than a notch in the mountains, really – was utterly desolate, drowned in the rock-haze, soon to be deluged in water from above — black in heaven, gray on Earth.

It was eerie.

The wind was howling as it coursed its way through the peaks above, spilling into the valley and occasionally producing miniature gusts that burst from random directions and churning the dust into little whirlwinds. The sound was even eerier than the sight: It was like a banshee screeching into the night.

It was still daylight.

Spyro glanced back at the door: It was a thick, wooden door (Spyro wasn't even going to venture a guess as to where the wood had come from…) and looked fairly sturdy, but few wooden doors could withstand a well-placed blow from a dragon. The lieutenant was still checking for explosives.

Something caught Spyro's eye on the little ledge over the door frame, perhaps designed to shield it from rain: There, painted onto the building's façade, in almost unnervingly exquisite detail, was a flower — but not a lily; no, this flower was purple and black, alluring and sinister.

_Nightshade_…

Spyro glanced back at the ERSOU dragons: Not one had noticed what he had seen.

"This door's clear," the lieutenant whispered, backing away. Before Polemos could speak, Spyro interjected:

"Good — thank you, Lieutenant. Polemos, fan your men out and have them surround this structure and stand by to breach. I'll go in through this door and check things out."

"But, sir — " Polemos looked alarmed, but Spyro cut across him:

"This place looks deserted, and I can take care of myself. If it_ is_ an ambush, I don't want you and your men walking into it. I will have _no_ arguments." Polemos gave him a measured look; after a moment, he nodded.

"As you say, sir…" The dragons sidled along the wall, vanishing around the corners on either side. Spyro waited until they were definitely gone before looking back up at the nightshade. He stared at it for a few moments before speaking quietly, as though that painted flower had ears, even though his voice was drowned in the howl of the winds:

"Your disguise serves you not, ma'am." He paused and then quipped: "'Give me a look, give me a face that makes simplicity a grace.'" Spyro chuckled at his own epigram, and then calmly opened the door and stepped inside.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"Is this such a good idea?" asked Keo, sounding a little discomfited as Cynder walked very rapidly down the corridors, heading towards the interrogation chambers, built in a dungeon-like cavity in the southeastern area of the Temple.

"I will _not_ just sit back and let Spyro take all of this on himself!" Cynder declared almost viciously, furious with herself that it had taken hours for her to come up with the idea: "I'm going to interrogate that perfidious wretch myself!"

"Can you do that?" Cynder shot him a venomous look as they rounded a corner. He gave her a placating look in return. "Okay, okay! Sorry…" They continued to traverse the halls, descending deeper and deeper into the Temple, finally coming to a room where a guard had been posted; he spotted Cynder and Keo – both of whom he knew, the first by reputation, the second personally – and stepped aside, both confused and obsequious. Cynder slammed open the door and entered, Keo following sheepishly (unusual for him) behind.

They entered a little chamber with a single door, leading into a stark, almost completely empty room in which the traitorous lieutenant could be seen; Marius was standing in the corner, watching the prisoner carefully. He spun around when the door burst open, saluting when he saw who was entering. Cynder strode straight up to him.

"Marius, I am going to speak to that dragoness _right now_." Marius looked supremely uncomfortable; he dropped his salute and replied uneasily:

"Ma'am, that will not be possible."

"_What do you mean 'not possible'_?!" Cynder demanded. Her normally lovely emerald eyes were transfigured with murderous fury. Marius did not flinch:

"I mean, ma'am, that it is impossible that the prisoner be interrogated at this time."

"And why is that, _Captain_?" Cynder demanded, spitting out the last word. Still Marius remained completely though uncomfortably serene:

"I have my orders, ma'am: No one can see the prisoner — "

"I can supersede anyone's _orders_, Captain — or should I say, _Lieutenant_?" Cynder snarled viciously. Her threat fell lifeless before Marius's tranquility: He did not even blink.

"Not Spyro's…ma'am," he replied quietly. That made Cynder pause: Keo saw confusion violently supplant the rage in her eyes.

"_Spyro_…?" she repeated, utterly aghast.

"Yes ma'am."

"You mean," Cynder began, in a voice trembling with reemerging fury, "that Spyro's already interrogated this prisoner?" For the first time, Marius seemed put off: He shifted minutely from side to side, and he appeared unable to keep himself from averting his gaze for a very brief moment.

"I did not say that, ma'am — "

"Dang it, Marius!" Cynder roared ferociously, "I am _not_ one of your intelligence officers! Do _not_ play games with me! I want the truth _right NOW_!" Marius hesitated, his discomfort greatly amplified. He stood smoldering beneath Cynder's fiery gaze before finally sighing.

"Yes ma'am, he did interrogate her."

"That's all I wanted to know," Cynder growled, "Now, I am going to go in there and talk to her and find out what it is that Spyro knows that I don't that apparently has upset him so, if he's ordering you to keep this hush-hush — and _you_ are not going to do one single thing to stop me!"

"Understood, ma'am."

"And Marius?"

"Ma'am?"

"Stop calling me _ma'am_." With that misplaced and gentle command, Cynder strode past the intelligence officer and over to the cell door. Keo flashed Marius an apologetic look and followed Cynder.

"You don't have to follow me, Keo," she said quietly.

"I think that I do," said Keo in a meek, tender, quiet voice, whose disparity with his personality seemed to convince her: She simply nodded absently, opened the door, and stepped into the cell. Keo followed and closed the door behind him.

The lieutenant started when the door opened; her eyes, already dilated in fear and apprehension, shot open even wider when they saw Cynder — whether from terror or from surprise, Keo could not tell. The manacles binding her to the table tinkled as she shifted uncomfortably.

"C-Cynder? I — "

"Save your sob story," Cynder snarled, sitting down opposite her, a fiery look in her eyes, "You nearly got my son killed — and I don't have as much self-control as Spyro does." She added the last part menacingly; the lieutenant cringed; Keo slid quietly into a spot directly in front of the door, to the right of table, so that he could see both of their faces.

"All I want to know," Cynder continued, "is what you told Spyro earlier. _All of it_." The lieutenant looked supremely discomfited by this request, and that struck Keo as odd: Why should she be so nervous at recounting what she had already told? Was it because she didn't know much, and she was afraid that Cynder would go into a rage if she didn't get what she wanted?

Marius had seemed pretty uncomfortable, too — he had worn the same uneasy look that the lieutenant wore now: The look of someone trapped in a corner, looking desperately for a way out. _What is going on here_?

"I…I don't know if I can do that…" the lieutenant stammered timidly. Cynder glared at her witheringly.

"Oh, you'll tell me," she said, in a quiet, searing tone, "and you'll tell me _right now_." The lieutenant fidgeted, her manacles rattling; she refused to meet Cynder's eyes. Finally, she opened her mouth and began to speak.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Spyro crept through yet another dimly lit room, his deep purple scales camouflaging him in the gloom. This whole building appeared deserted: He had seen neither hide nor hair of anyone; the entire place was enveloped in a sepulchral shadow — one might have thought it the passage to the tomb.

Still Spyro walked on, clearing room after room — apparently, the building was much larger than he had thought. The rooms all looked the same, and even the bric-a-brac that lay scattered about was the same: random bits of wood, glass, and metal; boards; boxes; torn wrappings and cloth; miscellaneous supplies — all the makings of any ordinary office complex.

Spyro suspected that nothing in this building was ordinary: The characters featured in the paintings that adorned some of the walls appeared to watch him as he plunged into the depths of the shadows, and the shadows themselves seemed to dance at his presence. The air was still, yet it was, at the same time, stirred by an eerie whisper of sorts, something like a sigh…or a sob…

Amidst this moaning and haunting darkness, Spyro remained calm; he could sense no one here. He entered the next room unconcernedly, looking around: This one was just like the last — strewn with detritus, ill lit by some weird, ghostly illumination whose source he had not yet found; he observed a loose-looking wire running down one wall.

Spyro crossed the room and opened another door. There were no other doors to this room, which was quite different from the others — it was immaculate and largely empty, except for a chest on the far side, against the wall.

The ghostly light – at least in here – was coming from a trio of candles lit with blue flame affixed in a candelabrum above the chest. The wan, deathly glow seemed almost cold: It shivered through the air, which seemed to reject its light as unnatural, and the room was thus filled with a horrible, icy stillness, a stillness in which one might perceive shrieks as the light clashed with the dark.

The silence howled, the shadows loomed menacingly; the air was thick, the scent of sepulchral frigidity hovered over everything; the darkness breathed, the light did not. Light was dead, darkness alive, the shadows their offspring — this whole place smacked of a place begotten in some spectral limbo between the living and the dead. All was hazy.

Spyro crossed the room, still perfectly calm; he opened the chest and looked inside.

Sitting there were two flowers: a nightshade and a lily — white spattered with red.

Spyro smiled.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Keo listened as the lieutenant sobbed wretchedly where she sat, her chains tinkling as her body trembled with anguish; she had just finished telling them how Sefdomai – whom she knew only by the name Mendax – had blackmailed her into compliance, threatened her family, killed her aunt to force her to do his bidding. She had just finished relating all of the details of her part of the espionage – which, thankfully, was not too extensive – when she had broken down into tears.

Cynder, for her part, appeared largely unmoved: Her fiery green eyes were still fixed stonily on the lieutenant. Keo could tell by the half sympathetic, half ferocious look in her eye that she was torn between a desire to offer solace…and the memory of her son, bloodied and bruised. Keo shuddered to think what Cynder (_or Spyro, for that matter_) would have done had Lucas not survived…

"All of this is very interesting," she said hotly, not batting an eye when the lieutenant looked mortified by her tone, "but I fail to see how any of this would induce Spyro to leave the Temple. What more did you tell him?" Keo knew immediately that something was wrong: The lieutenant's face suddenly became enshrouded in shadow – a mixture of horror and fear – and she immediately looked away, not meeting Cynder's gaze. Her tears stopped flowing and simply welled in her eyes.

"Well?" Cynder demanded. The lieutenant remained uncooperative for a moment more; then, finally, she lifted her head and blurted out, in a voice choked with sobs:

"H-He's walking into a trap!" Keo wasn't sure what to make of that: It seemed to him that _everything_ was a trap, everything was a façade. What made this so different? Cynder appeared more perturbed: Her eyes had widened, and wild, terrified look sprang into their lovely green depths, contorting them with some indescribable quality that made Keo's blood run cold and his heartbeat accelerate. Just then, there was a knock on the door: Marius entered.

Keo thought he looked very strange: His expression was a stormy mixture of apprehension, sorrow, and something almost like relief; he had the look of someone attending the deathbed of someone he had hated.

"I am sorry to interrupt," he said very softly, the kind of voice one used with the terminally ill, "but Cynder, you must come out here. _Now_." Something in his tone defused all resistance: Cynder arose and walked out, Keo following her.

He instantly knew that something was wrong: Captain Polemos stood near the other door, his armor stained with smoke and blood, a wild, shocked, aggrieved look in his eyes.

"What's wrong?" Cynder asked, looking as though, in some horrified way, she already knew the answer. Marius glanced at Polemos; he seemed too stunned for words.

"We were investigating a building," he choked out finally, in a voice that one would have sworn had echoed from the tomb, "and…and there was a bomb inside; the entire place was blasted practically to pieces. Nothing but a skeleton left. Two of my men were seriously injured.

"And Spyro…is dead."


	15. Eclipse

**CHAPTER 15**

"Eclipse"

Keo paced back and forth on the western rampart, turning his gaze occasionally out in the direction of the Enchanted Forest, as if he could see the skeleton of a building which was all that remained of the explosion that had obliterated his best friend.

He was so shocked, so horrified, that he didn't even notice the pouring rain that was drenching his whole body. He was shivering, but he didn't care. He couldn't believe that Spyro was gone.

_How can this be_? He felt like wailing; stupefaction held his tongue. He could hardly imagine what Cynder was feeling…if she was awake…

The moment that she had received that unfathomably terrible news, she had collapsed from shock and disbelief; Captain Polemos and Keo had rushed her off to the nearest infirmary, whence Doctor Ambulo had whisked her off to her chamber until she awoke. Keo just remembered being glad that Arial hadn't been in that infirmary…

Keo had stayed with Cynder for an hour, had heard Doctor Ambulo advise Captain Polemos to keep the news quiet until the morning, and had eventually been enjoined by the former to take a walk, since Cynder would not likely awaken for a while…

So, here he was. He had been walking around in the rain for an hour, and the sun was finishing its submersion beneath the horizon: The blackest night that Keo had ever seen was descending upon the Earth.

Keo's mind felt number than his body; everything was passing through like fogged lightning, everything was wrong, so very wrong…

_Maybe I should go back and see Cynder_, Keo thought. _Maybe I can help her_…

Keo wasn't sure of anything right now, but he directed his steps inward anyway.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Marius entered the little supply closet on the southwestern side of the Temple, sealing the door behind him and glancing around: The room was very dimly lit, the faint candlelight revealing the miasmic dust in the air. The room was deathly silent; the only sound was the muffled staccato of the ferocious tempest outside, almost as if it were a great distance away…

"Have you heard?" Marius asked, seemingly to no one; a voice, low and quiet, answered out of the gloom:

"Yes."

"No more than expected."

"…maybe…"

"Desperate times…" Marius quoted. A young dragon emerged from out of the shadows to his left, seemingly materializing from the darkness: He was thin and robust, sinewy and sharp-looking, with sagacious green eyes and scales of a murky, nebulous gray that, had it been a few shades darker, would have resembled the tenebrous skies outside.

"'A more aggressive and personal approach,'" he quoted in return, still in that soft, grave voice. His face was solemn, soulful, almost dolorous, and utterly inscrutable. It seemed to betray everything, yet nothing; it was a face of marble: cool, impenetrable, radiant. One might have thought him angelic, were it not for the shadow of somberness that hung over his eyes.

"Indeed," echoed Marius.

"So what's the plan?"

"I've been going over the intel for hours: Piecing together what we already knew with the data from the storage facility, as well as what little we managed to glean from Permotta, I think I might have deduced the headquarters location."

"Where?" demanded the dragon voraciously. Marius passed him a slip of paper, on which a few lines were scribbled.

"That's a general location," he advised, "so I would suggest some recon before we move in: The element of surprise will be paramount, and there's no sense trying to kill a mosquito with a bomb."

"Agreed," the dragon said in a voice that sounded almost reluctant or disappointed, "I'll set out right now."

"Be careful — if you're caught — "

"I won't be," the dragon replied firmly, his eyes glittering. He slid past Marius to the door. "I have the night to conceal me."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Keo faltered along down the hallway, the deep shadows of midnight threatening to pull him into an exhausted sleep right where he stood; he had talked Doctor Ambulo into leaving Cynder alone till morning, and he had cheered her up as best as he could: She had woken up shortly after the doctor had left, and he had only left her when she had fallen back asleep.

Keo felt guilty: He couldn't expunge the image of her grief-marred face, her lovely green eyes blurred with the thickest tears that he had ever seen, her body wracked with sobs, shivering in the strangely cold night —

Keo shook his head, trying to clear it of those ghastly images; his entire body and mind were reeling from exhaustion. He was numb with emotions that he had never felt before, most of all a plaintive sort of cloudiness, obscuring everything he thought…

"Keo?" He looked up; Doctor Ambulo had appeared out of nowhere and was standing next to him in the darkness. Keo chastised himself blearily for not having noticed him — he was a soldier after all, a _sentinel_…

"Yeah, doc?"

"I need to speak with you for a moment. Come with me." Doctor Ambulo's normally highly courteous and ceremonious tone was drowned in somberness; he had not requested: He had commanded. Keo obeyed. Doctor Ambulo led him promptly down a few winding corridors and into an office, whose occupant – indicated by a sign next to the door – Keo did not even noticed.

The room was not empty: Lieutenant Colonel Cognova stood off to the left, looking very grave, and Marius was in the rear right corner, watching the door with a cryptic and distrait gaze. Doctor Ambulo led Keo in and shut the door behind him; Keo heard him seal it. _This must be serious_…

"There are important matters to discuss," Ambulo said immediately once he had shut the door against unwanted intrusion, "We are in the midst of a highly lugubrious situation a hairbreadth away from becoming the biggest crisis that the world has seen since the days of Malefor."

"Our first priority should be to find a suitable replacement," Cognova intoned somberly, "With Spyro dead, the Dragon Army will need leadership, and Cynder appears in no ways capable to take over at the moment, even though she is the first in the pecking order."

"There is tradition to consider," Doctor Ambulo noted, sounding only half serious, "The Dragon Army has always been led by a Guardian, of which Cynder remains the only one."

"Certainly she could take over once she has dealt with the trauma of this incident, but at the moment I doubt that she is in any way fit to take control of the Dragon Army."

"Somehow," Doctor Ambulo began in a dark, slow voice, "I doubt that Cynder will ever again be fit to rule."

"Even so," Cognova said, "the pecking order's not the real problem: The real problem is how the public will react. Spyro was a pretty important dragon — "

"Yes," Ambulo interrupted, "the symbol of this new era — gone, dead. That will be horribly shocking to say the least, and then there are the political repercussions to consider: Spyro was essentially the only factor that kept the North Isles in the state of tenuous peace that has allowed them to survive these past couple of decades. With him gone, and particularly in the absence of King Parcel, who, as far as I am aware, has yet to be replaced, the North Isles could very likely plunge into turmoil."

"And then there's the matter of the dragon responsible for Spyro's death," Cognova added in a growl, "This _Sefdomai_ — we'll have to catch him, go all out against him; the best way that we can reassure the public is to capture the culprit and have him promptly dealt with."

"You mean executed," Ambulo pointed out; his voice was indecipherable. Cognova gave him a somber, shadowy look.

"That is the price for treason and murder, doctor."

A chilled silence met his words; then, Marius piped up in a very tranquil, grave tone:

"I think that perhaps we are acting too hastily." The others looked at him quizzically. "We are presuming that we must reveal the news of Spyro's death now, abruptly and harshly — when in fact we could just as easily conceal it."

"Conceal the fact that quite literally the most well-known dragon in all the world has been murdered?" Cognova asked sarcastically. Marius did not even remotely flinch beneath his superior's vitriol:

"Yes. Spyro leaves – left – the Temple quite often on military exploits, and he was, in fact, searching for the assassin when…when it happened. It would be child's play to promulgate the idea that he is still out in the field, and no one but those few who are privy right now would actually be any the wiser."

"But the ERSOU returned," Ambulo noted, "They came back without Spyro; they were the ones who brought us the news of his death. How do we explain that?"

"No one knows that they have returned," Marius answered coolly, "Deploy them back out into the field, and no one will know the difference."

"That's rather underhanded, Marius," Cognova observed, narrowing his eyes slightly.

"It is better than announcing tomorrow morning that our leader has been murdered and we have not the slightest clue as to where the culprit is," Marius replied calmly, "In the meantime, we can be _looking_ for that culprit."

"What about Cynder?" Ambulo asked, "There is no way that she will be able to effect a façade anywhere near sufficient to mask the facts: She's utterly destroyed right now, and I doubt that she will improve any time soon…if at all."

"Cynder can remain isolated," Marius answered delicately, "She doesn't have to go anywhere, and, for all anyone knows, she could be out in the field with Spyro."

"And her children?" Cognova demanded, "Do you intend to keep the fact that their father is dead from them? Let them hear it the same way everyone else will — when we announce his funeral?" For once, Marius shifted uncomfortably.

"I think that that matter should be left to Cynder," he replied evasively.

"Cynder is hardly in a position to make decisions like that," Cognova retorted.

"But still, they _are_ her children," Ambulo observed peaceably, "I think that Marius has a point: If anyone tells them, it should be she." Cognova looked around, as though waiting for another argument to be presented; when none arose, he spoke, with a firm and final air:

"Well then, I suppose our priority now will be to ensure that no one blabs this to anyone, to redeploy Captain Polemos and his team to the field, and to initiate stringent search-and-destroy operations to hunt down this killer."

"I took the liberty of beginning with the latter already, Colonel," said Marius coolly. Cognova nodded.

"Then let's get going, Marius — we have ops to supervise." The two intelligence officers swept from the room, resealing the door behind them. Doctor Ambulo sighed.

"I'm sorry that I dragged you here, Keo," he said, in a voice that was heartbreakingly exhausted, "I know that you must be very drained; but I need your help with one final issue."

"What's that?" asked Keo hoarsely; he hadn't spoken in so long, and he was so tired, that his voice was cracking. Doctor Ambulo started pacing up and down, looking thoroughly uncomfortable.

"You recall," he began slowly after a long moment of silence, "what I said a few minutes ago about Cynder likely never recovering?"

"Yeah…" Keo had heard it, but the horror of that thought hadn't quite registered in his tired brain just yet.

"I sincerely doubt that she will. She and Spyro…well, their relationship was a highly unusual one: one of such unity of spirit that I don't think that she will survive this separation. It doesn't help that her entire life has been built off of Spyro's, from the moment that he rescued her from Convexity."

"You think she won't pull herself back up?" Keo asked, not sure that he believed that: Cynder was an incredibly strong dragoness, with an iron will and a huge amount of courage. Doctor Ambulo shook his head sorrowfully.

"No, I do not think that she will — there are some wounds which are irremediable, Keo. This is no ordinary death of a loved one: Spyro was quite literally her _life_. Their two souls were linked so intricately and inextricably that…well, I don't think that their being torn asunder is possible: Cynder's soul will soon join Spyro's."

Keo didn't know what to say: He felt a nearly overwhelming urge to be sick right then and there. He thought that maybe his heart had stopped beating. The thought of losing Cynder on top of already having lost Spyro…that was inconceivably excruciating: He simply _couldn't_ believe it. He couldn't.

"I…I dunno if I'll be able to take that, doc," Keo admitted, his voice trembling a little. Doctor Ambulo gave him a sympathetic grimace.

"You may have to, Keo, but I want your help to try and avert that eventuality as much as possible."

"How?" Keo demanded: He would do _anything_.

"I need you to sort of fill in for Spyro, to be the best friend that you can possibly be…perhaps more. I do not know what that might entail, Keo, and it will probably be difficult, but it may very well be our only shot at pulling Cynder through this." Keo shifted uncomfortably, feeling thoroughly awkward.

"I dunno if I can replace Spyro, doc," he murmured, "I don't think that I could…"

"You may have to," Ambulo repeated in a dark voice, "Otherwise, Cynder does not stand a ghost of a chance."

"I'll…I'll do everything in my power, doc."

"Good, Keo — now, you should get some sleep."

"Yeah…sure thing…"

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"Who thought that it was a good idea to hide these things so close to the headquarters?" the red-eyed, blue-scaled dragon grumbled, extracting, with some measure of difficulty, a thick, leathery sack full of candlesticks.

"I dunno, man," his partner mumbled as he pushed back into place the large, inconspicuous rock that had concealed the inconspicuous supply cache. "You'd think that they _would_ put the stuff a little farther than just around the bend of the stream — "

"Shh!" the first dragon said harshly, "Who knows who might be listening! Maybe those cheetah-people…"

"You kidding, man? They're miles away from here!"

"Yeah, but there was that one that got into the forge, remember — and that wasn't far from here…"

"And he's _dead_ now — guts all over the ground and everything! I don't think that they'll be bothering us again anytime soon…"

"Still, I don't like it."

"_You_ said it, too!" the second pointed out.

"I just said _near_!" the first retorted indignantly, "I didn't give the _directions_!"

"Whatever, man — let's just get this stuff back inside. It's dark as a dragon's maw out here…"

"True that…" The two dragons left quickly, their bag of candlesticks bouncing along. Unbeknownst to them, they were being watched: A gray-scaled, green-eyed dragon stepped out cautiously from behind a tree, quietly removed the stone from the supply cache, looked around inside, and smiled mysteriously.

He reclosed the cache and walked off in the opposite direction from the other two.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Cynder cringed as shadows with forms like wolves snapped their hideous jaws around her, bursts of sinister dark light blossoming up around her like monstrous flowers, a demoniacal cackling noise inundating her ears —

She felt herself falling through webs of shadows, darkness on all sides, furious whirlwinds of sound pummeling her eardrums, rapid evolutions of light, as though she were hurtling at incredible speed through the deepest, remotest, coldest, eeriest reaches of space, passing comets and stars and nebulae —

She was pulled into a black hole, feeling herself slowly suffocating beneath the crushing pressure, a horrible, deathly silence clogged with screams of victims past echoing all around her, draping her like a blanket —

And then she was floating in a sea of frigidly, terribly cold darkness, shadows of ice, a glacier of blackness, and she was suspended in the middle, feeling the blood congealing in her veins, her brain shutting down as the warm arms of Death wreathed around her —

Cynder's eyes flew open; she breathed again; she was not dead, not surrounded by those evil flowers of lightless light, not plummeting through the folds of shadows, not languishing beneath the horrendous force of the black hole or within the icy depths of the black glacier, and the warmth that had enveloped her was that of a body pressed against hers, wings wrapped around her shoulders —

"Spyro…?"

"Not quite," whispered a voice, a gentle, warm, kind voice.

"Keo…" The Fire dragon grinned mildly at her, but she collapsed into tears: The sight of him and not of Spyro had brought back into her mind with terrible, excruciating vividness the memory of that news — Spyro…gone —

Keo held her close, whispering something into her ear, probably something intended to be soothing, but the intense waves of grief crashing over her rendered her deaf. She simply continued to weep uncontrollably, her sobs so strong, so soulful that her whole body quaked, and Keo was forced to tighten his grip on her to hold her steady.

When she finally calmed down enough to at least see through her tears, she noticed the deep shadows that filled the room: The pale, almost dusty quality of the light told her that it was a couple of hours before dawn.

"You should eat something," Keo told her gently. The thought was sickening. Cynder shook her head and slid out of his grip, staggering over to the balcony and collapsing onto the stone, looking up into the sky: The rain was still lashing through the air, whipped by ferocious winds that were howling like the screams that she had heard in the black hole —

She shuddered and felt her tears returning. The balcony was shielded by an overhang, enough so that she was not being drenched by the rain, but the wind was so strong that she _was_ being peppered by mist, and that reminded her of her nightmares as well and only served to intensify her sobs.

Keo came out onto the balcony, despite the rain and cold, which she knew he hated, and lay down next to her, draping his wing over her…like Spyro used to…

…and never would again.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Marius entered his office, sealed the door, crossed to his desk, pulled a folder out of a drawer, and began sifting through the papers that it contained; he whirled around when a voice spoke up from the corner to the left of the door:

"I've made progress," it said. Marius relaxed when he recognized the speaker: a young, robust dragon with gray scales and sharp green eyes.

"Must you sneak up on people like that?" Marius asked him tiredly, closing the folder. The dragon gave him a thin smile.

"I can't very well use the _door_, can I?"

"No, I suppose not… What progress?"

"I've figured out where they're based."

"Where?" demanded Marius, suddenly avid; the dragon crossed calmly to the map on the western wall and pointed promptly to a spot very near the forge that Hunter had discovered, a spot that abutted on the mountains that bounded the Enchanted Forest on the north.

"Here — there's a subterranean network that they've worked into a series of living and operational spaces. They have aboveground caches for some supplies and such, and there's obviously the forge and storage holding facilities like the ones we've found. From the layout, I would guess that there are smaller underground units scattered throughout the forest."

"Do you know the location of any of them?"

"I have a general fix on one — a few miles southeast of Avalar. I would guess that they used it as a relay point in getting their men from the headquarters to Warfang, as well as to Permotta."

"How general?" The dragon shrugged.

"I have a few landmarks — a skilled tracker could probably piece it together."

"Well," said Marius with a sigh, "I don't think that we can do anything about that just yet — dispatching a team to investigate could reveal that we have inside information — "

"I want them to know." The dragon had changed: His aloof, amiable mien had transfigured into a mask of cold fury, and there was death in his sagacious eyes, which had become like chips of green ice. Marius returned his gaze levelly.

"Are you sure? That might compromise my sources…"

"I'll alert your sources."

"…If you say so: I'll send out Captain Polemos posthaste." The young dragon relaxed, his fury subsided, and his eyes returned to their normal peaceful twinkle.

"Good. I'm going to head back out."

"Have you found somewhere to stay during the day?"

"Yeah, I've found a place."

"Then," said Marius, turning his back on the dragon so that he could reopen his folder, "I suppose that you should get going." But when he turned back around…the dragon had vanished, leaving nothing but a small sheet of paper, tacked to the map.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"Oh, by the way," Keo murmured softly to Cynder after a good hour of silence other than the sounds of her sobs, "I…don't know what this means, but I found them just inside the door when I came to check on you." He stood up and walked back into the chamber proper, pulling something out of a shadowy corner and placing it before her.

Cynder stood slowly, trembling, the shrieking of the storm pounding in her ears, the mist tickling the back of her neck as she stared at the mysterious parcel: It was a bouquet — or, more properly, three flowers tied together by a sprig of holly bound to a yew branch.

The first was a white carnation, the second a violet, and the third…a snow-white lily spattered with blood-red.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Sunrise broke slowly the following day; the deep black clouds of the previous day's storm had been momentarily parted by the daring rays of sunlight; the air was full of mist, and the light seemed to be not light but simply a thinner form of shade.

Captain Polemos scented the air, but the water that clogged the air drowned out any odor that might have clued him to the presence of his enemies. Three of his troopers stalked through the bushes behind him, making nary a sound. The others, in two other groups, were converging on the same location from different angles.

Marius had dispatched them a couple of hours before with orders to check around this little pocket of the Enchanted Forest squeezed between the mountains bordering the Valley of Avalar and those bounding the forest itself; he had given them nothing but a piece of paper listing a few landmarks and an advisement to be watchful for entrances to underground facilities.

Confused but under orders, the ERSOU had set out, and they were now cautiously and deliberately making their way towards the indicated area — but so far, they had seen neither hide nor hair of anything or anyone, much less hostiles.

"Are we sure about this, sir?" one of the troopers hissed.

"These are our orders," Captain Polemos replied vaguely, "We don't have a choice." So they slinked along in silence. After about ten minutes, Polemos spotted something up ahead: a large, gnarled oak tree with a single branch broken, hanging perpendicular to the ground, a single vine suspended from it.

"There's one of our landmarks," he whispered to his men, "Keep a weather eye open; who knows what's lurking around here. Their vigilance redoubled, the troopers pressed on, silent as ever, until they reached the tree. There they paused, and Polemos looked around carefully: _There should be a — aha_!

A bush, several of whose branches had been snapped in a triangular pattern, lay about ten yards to the northwest. It was a sign that would be inconspicuous to any who were not privy to its purpose.

"There's landmark number two," Polemos breathed, pointing to the bush, "The third should be — "

"Over there!" one of his men hissed: Some twenty yards to the right of the bush was a tree with two long, deep claw marks forming an X.

At that moment, Polemos spotted movement to his right; he darted behind a tree, but relaxed the moment he recognized Yplago and two other of his men. He motioned for them to approach, and they did.

"Where are the others?" Polemos asked in a hushed voice.

"About a klick north of here, my guess," Yplago replied, "The terrain's pretty rough in that direction — would've slowed them down."

"We can't afford to wait," Polemos grunted, "There are six of us here, and that ought to be enough. All right, everyone, listen: We're going to fan out and search the area for any sign of hostile activity. Remember, intel suggests that the enemy is likely utilizing subterranean facilities, so be especially thorough checking out the thick underbrush. Give a whistle if you find anything; otherwise, keep it quiet, and everybody remains in visual contact — there aren't enough of us to set up a proper search perimeter."

"Yes sir," five voices responded.

"Move out — Lieutenant," he added, seizing one dragon who was about to troop off, "Head north a ways and keep an eye out for the rest of the team."

"Yes sir." The lieutenant darted away into the trees. Polemos started snooping around the oak tree, which was girded with dense, scraggly bushes; finding nothing, he progress northwestward a few yards, searching through a clump of even thicker bushes, with no results other than a few scratches. _C'mon — where are you…_?

Polemos continued to poke around quietly, taking his time and scrutinizing each patch of foliage for signs of foul play; after a solid fifteen minutes of nothing, he heard a whistle; his head snapped around, but Yplago, who was only a few yards away, shook his head.

"Bird," he growled quietly; they all went back to work.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"She's falling apart, doc," Keo said miserably, staring at Cynder through the open chamber door; he and the doctor stood outside in the hall, while Cynder was inside, sleeping — or, more appropriately, drowning, inundated by savage nightmares that were making her twitch and moan. "I'm doing everything I can think of, but she's still…" Keo could find a word that summed up the horror of what he knew that she must be suffering.

"I was afraid of this," Doctor Ambulo whispered, his voice shaking ever so slightly, "I…I am not sure what can be done at this point."

"We've gotta do _something_!"

"I do not know if we _can_, Keo," Ambulo said with infinite sadness, "She has lost so great a part of herself that…well, I am not sure that she will survive."

"Don't talk like that, doc," Keo croaked, barely managing to force the words out. Those words were like a vise around his heart.

"I am very serious, Keo." He paused before prognosticating in a doleful voice: "I am not convinced that she will last the week." An agonizing silence followed, and Keo just had to say something:

"We can't…_I_ can't let that happen, doc," he mumbled. Doctor Ambulo gave him a strange, half pitying, half austere look.

"I know, Keo, but we are powerless to fight this. It is Cynder's battle now…a battle of the soul."

"She's strong," Keo declared immediately — then he remembered what Cynder had said only yesterday about battles of the soul: _It's not always the stronger soul that wins_…

That made him feel infinitely worse. Ambulo said nothing.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"How can someone die of _grief_, doctor?" Lieutenant Colonel Cognova demanded; Marius remained silent.

"It is quite simple, actually," Ambulo replied with tired dryness, "The body submits itself, to a certain degree, to the mind, as does the mind to the soul; when the soul is in chaos, so is the mind, and when the mind is flung into enough chaos…the body reacts: It obeys the implicit impulse of the shattered mind, and that is the will to die."

"Cynder _wants_ to die?"

"Wouldn't you?" Ambulo asked him darkly: "We are talking about a dragoness whose entire life – all of the good that she had ever known; everything she loved, cherished, held dear; all the things that she had built her life upon; the very reason that her life was even intact – has been ripped violently and bloodily from her. I would not be surprised if she wanted the pain to end." He paused before adding almost indignantly, "You cannot possibly comprehend the _torture_ that she is enduring right now, a torture that no being has ever, to the best of my knowledge, suffered before."

After a short stretch of silence, Ambulo added epigrammatically: "For some, death is peace."

"Who can we instate to head the Dragon Army?" Marius asked quietly, his voice choked and indecipherable. Cognova, now staring queerly at his paws, looked up and replied mechanically:

"General Caelo is the highest ranking officer in the Army. He'll take over."

"Military leadership is…potentially hazardous," Marius replied, "Caelo is a fantastic soldier and would make a stupendous ruler, to be sure, but what about after him? Who will succeed him? We must think of these things — "

"I think," Ambulo interjected almost bitterly, "that the question of local politics can be deferred momentarily, particularly since Caelo is, while not young, certainly not old; he will be fit to rule for at least a few centuries. Our problem _now_ is what to do about Cynder."

"It seems that there is nothing to be done," Cognova muttered.

"Perhaps not, but there will be repercussions once she has gone. Think of her children — they will be orphaned. Think of Keo, who is quite genuinely breaking his heart trying to support her, to keep her breathing, to keep her fighting. He will be…intensely traumatized once she is gone: He will have lost both of his best friends within a week of each other!"

"That's your department, doctor," Cognova said quietly.

"Yes, but _your_ department will be the sociopolitical backlash: The North Isles, the public here, the criminal organizations worldwide — they will all react very violently and abruptly to this news."

"I honestly don't know how to broach the subject, doctor," Cognova admitted exhaustedly; he looked at Marius: "Captain — any suggestions?" Marius, who appeared lost in thought, shook his head dolefully.

"No sir…none."

"Then for now," Cognova said ominously, "I suppose we just try to carry on."

That was far easier said than done.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Captain Polemos looked up, whipping his head around towards the source of the whistle: One of his men was standing between two large trees wreathed in tangled foliage; he was giving out the loud, birdlike whistle that was the signal that he had found something. Polemos and the rest of the squad quickly convened around him, taking care not to make too much noise.

"What is it?" Polemos whispered to the signaler.

"Found what looked like a rabbit warren here in the bushes," the lieutenant replied quietly, "Took a peek inside and saw several boxes — no indication of what's in them."

"All right: Yplago, establish a perimeter; Lieutenant, you're with me: Let's check this out." The lieutenant led the way into the bushes, picking his way carefully to avoiding rustling and snapping the branches too much. He cautiously parted a screen of vines creeping along the ground, revealing a hole large enough for a dragon to squirm through; Polemos entered first, the lieutenant following.

Polemos pushed through the tunnel, finding himself in a comfortably sized, vault-like space that smelled of wet earth; roots laced the walls like spider webs, and there were indeed a few boxes off to the right. Polemos moved away from the tunnel so that the lieutenant could enter, and then they both swept the little underground room for enemies.

Finding it clear, Polemos approached the boxes and looked them over carefully: There was no writing to indicate their contents, but they were not damp or dank-smelling, so they evidently had not been there very long.

"I wonder what's in these…" the lieutenant mused.

"No idea," Polemos replied, "but they've been moved recently: no signs of wear…"

"Shall we open one?" Polemos nodded.

"Check for explosives," he added, recalling painfully what had happened yesterday. The lieutenant did so, and, finding none, he flung open the crate that he had selected.

"Looks like desiccated foodstuffs," the lieutenant replied, "We've got rabbits, sheep…I think some voles…"

"Vole's a little small," Polemos noted.

"Yeah — they are pretty common up in the north, though…"

"Could give us a lead on their base of operations," Polemos observed, "Let's make a note of that. What's in this one?" Checking to make sure that the crate was not wired, he ripped the lid off and looked inside. "Clerical supplies. No files, though."

"This one's empty, I think," the lieutenant said, pushing the crate a little to check its weight.

"Check it anyway." The lieutenant did.

"Yep, empty."

"Maybe they were going to put something in it, something from around here," Polemos thought aloud.

"Perhaps they'll be coming back for it," the lieutenant remarked uneasily, glancing towards the entrance.

"Then perhaps we should ready ourselves for them."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"And you are sure that your plan has been a success?" the dragon asked.

"Absolutely," Felador replied instantly, "_Spyro_ — _is_ — _dead_."

"But you never recovered a body?"

"The entire building was blown up!" Felador said exasperatedly, "The walls were barely standing!"

"So I assume that that's a _no_?"

"I was unable to find a body," Felador admitted through gritted teeth. The dragon cast him a foul, grave look.

"I cannot take chances, Felador. If we are to move in, I must be certain of Spyro's demise. His involvement would be a…_complication_ to my plans."

"He is _dead_, I tell you, Voynastraja!"

"I believe you, but it has not even been twenty-four hours, Felador," Voynastraja countered imperiously. "I am in no hurry to rush my enterprises onto such thin ice. We shall give it…four days more. If all things are quiet after that period, I shall move the pieces into place."

"You're the only dragon I know," Felador said slowly, "who'll play chess _after_ the king's been checkmated!" Voynastraja smiled twistedly and left. He was immediately replaced by some gray-scaled page with bright green eyes.

"Yes?" Felador snapped; he hated being pestered by these underlings.

"Begging your pardon, sir," the page said in a low voice, "I was sent to inform you that I've been assigned to this office."

"In what capacity?"

"Miscellaneous duties," the dragon replied with a shrug.

"By whose authority, page?" The dragon's eyes flickered curiously.

"Higher up, sir, I'm not really sure who. I just go where they tell me." _That sounds about right for mindless drones_, Felador noted contemptuously. To the page he simply said:

"Then get to it, boy."

"Yes _sir_."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"Let's try that again," Polemos said slowly as the prisoner reeled from the blow to the groin that Yplago had given him. "Where is your base in this area?"

"I — I don't know!" Polemos nodded to Yplago, who came around and swiftly whacked the dragon upside the jaw, sending two teeth flying off into the bushes. Spitting blood from his mouth, breathing hard, the dragon cried: "A few miles east of here!"

Polemos considered that for a moment; then, he nodded to Yplago again, and the lieutenant gave the dragon a second blow to the groin. "I would advise you," Polemos said indifferently, "to speak the truth this time. Oh, and just in case you were thinking of trying to trick us _again_, you should know that we'll be taking you with us just to make sure that your story checks out."

The dragon, lying curled up in pain on the forest floor, trembling and wheezing, managed to splutter: "Okay…okay. It's…set in the mountains…north by northwest of here…"

"Now that sounds like a truthful answer," Polemos growled, "Yplago, you'll remain here with Bravo Team; I'll take Alpha with the liar here and check things out. If we're not back in an hour and a half, come looking and expect the worst."

"Yes sir."

"Get up, you!" Polemos snarled at the prisoner.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"And what did you find?" Marius asked, staring out the window into the setting sun — not that he could see it well: The rain had begun again soon after noon.

"Documents and such," Captain Polemos replied, "We rounded up several prisoners. They're being interrogated right now."

"Good," Marius grunted, "Get down there and supervise awhile, and then you and your team get some rest. …It's been a long couple of days — and I'm going to need you again tomorrow."

"Yes sir." Captain Polemos bowed out, sealing the door behind him. Marius continued gazing out the window, even though the weather made it next to impossible for him to see anything.

"You played that well," a voice said suddenly; Marius didn't even start: He knew who it was. He turned around, and, sure enough, there stood the gray-scaled dragon with green eyes.

"Yes, well, the situation is rather sensitive. We are trying to keep Polemos and his ERSOU away as much as possible…for obvious reasons…"

"Hmm," the dragon replied with a sort of pensive indifference.

"You look tired," Marius said carefully and measuredly, gazing at him. He returned his remark with a cryptic smile and a robust twinkle of the eye:

"I got about seven hours. I'm fine."

"Still, you've got your work cut out for you — perhaps a few more hours…?"

"I don't think so," the dragon replied with an inexorable shake of the head, "I only stopped by to let you know something before getting back to work."

"What is it?" The dragon's countenance changed: The last vestiges of his grin vanished completely, his eyes grew dark, and an almost dangerous air exuded from him.

"This whole plot…it's only a part of something bigger. The Raven's Wing is a front, a subsidiary of some other, larger, and more mysterious syndicate. The real criminal, the real leadership, the dragon behind all of this mess, is someone by the name of Voynastraja."

"You're sure?" Marius asked weakly; the idea that all of the chaos and horror of the past week had been nothing but a prelude to some darker terror was simply ghastly.

"Absolutely," the dragon answered staunchly, "I don't know where they're based, or who they even are, but this runs deeper than we thought." Marius processed this chilling news for a moment; then:

"Can you give me a description of this Voynastraja?" The dragon could, and he did.

"I think he might have been from the east," he added helpfully, "Judging from his accent, anyway — besides, where else could you hide an entire criminal organization?" That was true: The swamps and wastes that surrounded the Temple and the City of Warfang respectively were not very conducive to such organizations. The forests far to the east were secluded, enshrouded in mystery and superstition — the perfect atmosphere for a criminal syndicate.

"I'll send out some feelers that way," Marius mused, "but I guess that that's all I can do for now."

"Agreed."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Keo wasn't ashamed: The doc had never seen him cry before, but that was precisely what he was doing now. He had just left Cynder in her chamber, and it had taken every ounce of willpower that he possessed to prevent himself from bursting into tears until the door was shut. Now he sobbed quietly but profusely, standing by one of the windows along the corridor's east wall, hoping that the sound of the fierce rain pounding on the glass would drown out what little noise he was making so that Cynder would not hear.

Doctor Ambulo paced slowly up and down along the opposite wall, walking a few yards before turning around to walk in the other direction; he appeared to be on the verge of tears himself, but tiredness was what principally prevailed in his face: sheer, ineffable tiredness.

"I dunno what to do anymore, doc," Keo slurred, barely keeping his voice level, "I've tried everything I can think of – _everything_ – and she's just slipping further and further…"

"I know, Keo," the doctor replied very direly, "but I…I do not think that anything can be done. She has lost too great a part of herself."

"But — "

"There are storms we cannot weather, Keo," Ambulo interrupted him softly, "I am afraid that this is one of those storms." Keo had no reply: He was numb with a horrible, plaintive cold that seemed to radiate out from his heart, which had become but a lump of ice in his chest.

_It can't be_, he told himself.

But he knew: _It is_.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"Get those things loaded up!" Felador snapped at the pathetic underlings scurrying about like mice, moving crates of supplies into a cache hidden in a densely foliaged copse of trees. He had to speak a bit more loudly than he would have liked in order to be heard over the driving rain and howling wind. The bluish shadows of nightfall did not help much, either.

"Excuse me, sir, but do these go in with the others? They're from Wing A, and we don't have orders for that wing yet." Felador turned around: It was the gray-scaled page from earlier, and he was toting a box that was slightly larger than him on his back; it did not seem to be bothering him at all. _Perhaps he's not worthless after all_…

Felador checked the seal on the top of the box, read its contents, and stepped back: "Go ahead, put it in with the others." He considered it a note of praise that he did not call the dragon "page," or "boy."

"Yes _sir_." The dragon hefted the box away, and Felador was left to scowl at the other drones who were mindlessly and frantically going about their jobs.

"Keep hustling, people!" he called out, "We have to be prepared to launch the operation in a four days' time!" _Should be launching it now_, he growled to himself. Then he shrugged his shoulders: _I suppose Voynastraja knows what he's doing — and besides, why should I care? My job has been completed already_…

Nevertheless, he commanded his men to work faster.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Cynder staggered, her paw sliding on the wet stone of the balcony; she stumbled her way towards the edge, sitting down in the pouring rain, which pummeled her like driving sheets of ice. She was hoping that her numbness might be pierce by its deathly frigidity: It was so cold…so cold…

Why was it so cold? Spring should not be cold…

Cynder peered over the edge of the balcony, perceiving – even in the wan light of the tempestuous dawn – the dizzying height at which it sat: The forests and swamps below, thinning at the edge of the craggy plateau upon which the Temple was situated…

…It would be so easy…so easy…

_Just…drop_, a voice whispered to Cynder. _Just drop. A quick fall through the rain_. It would be so easy…too easy…

For a reason that she could not explain, with a tremendous effort, she turned her head around to peer melancholically back into the dormitory: Sitting by the door…

…was a bouquet exactly like the one Keo had found yesterday.

That hadn't been there when she had sunk into her latest string of nightmares. That had barely been a few hours ago. She hadn't noticed it when she had woken up a few minutes ago.

Arising from her cold, wet spot on the balcony, she crossed back over to the flowers and sniffed them: There was something familiar in their scent that made tears well up in her eyes. It was like the scent of the past — of childhood, of innocence, of things lost…

Cynder broke down weeping.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Marius paced his office, head throbbing from stress and lack of sleep; he struggled to determine what he should do next. _Come on, you dolt — think_! he chastised himself. Pausing by his desk, he cast a bleary-eyed glance on the papers that lay there: miscellaneous documents pertaining to the Sefdomai case. His analysts told him that they had managed to discern which data had been fabricated and which were genuine, and the latter lay on his desk now…

Marius strode over and scrutinized them, though he had already done so four times — review never hurt… _This is useless_, he thought grumpily after a few moments of strenuous and futile effort squandered in attempting to goad his brain into making sense of the words on the paper before him: He already knew what they said, and it didn't help. The only way they would find Sefdomai was by field work, and he couldn't help with that…

Marius replaced the papers, sighed, and rubbed his eyes exhaustedly. Okay, so what else _could_ he do? What other leads were there? Psychoanalysis had run its course — all that remained there was to capture the assassin, and indeed, that was the terminus of most of the data. It was no longer Marius's game: It was Polemos's — and, of course, _his_…

_Well, there was that dragon we captured at Strix Laboratories_, Marius recalled suddenly: one of the three thugs with whom Sefdomai had assaulted the labs. _I suppose I could send to Warfang for news of their investigation_… Yes, he would do that; meanwhile…

_Scabré_! he thought abruptly; the Vunoiran inspector was still in the Temple, and he would surely be wondering what was going on with the Sefdomai case: Marius had not updated him in days… He would soon be asking questions, and that simply could not be permitted, but how could Marius get him out of the way…?

_I have to get him back to Vunoire, but how_…? He could certainly just tell him that his services were no longer required, but that was hogwash — and Scabré would know it. _What if I told him that I couldn't keep him here anymore_? That might work, but he would definitely have to put the right spin on it; otherwise, Scabré, astute as he was, would surely detect foul play.

_I'll tell him that I need him to follow up on the BOLO in the North Isles_, Marius thought. That was plausible, and together with the first story, it would hold.

_That'll do_. That decided, Marius felt his weariness crash down on him anew; he glanced out the window: It was nearly noon; he would head to his chamber, take a nap for a few hours, and then hunt down Scabré.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"I'm fed up with this pussyfooting around, Sortolo!" Felador snarled, pacing furiously up and down; Sortolo watched him with a mixture of sympathy, annoyance, and fear that looked so juvenile and peculiar in his muddy blue eyes.

"I know, Felador, but Voynastraja is simply being careful — we never _did_ find a body…" he added timidly.

"THAT'S BECAUSE THERE _IS_ NO BODY!" Felador roared, "He was _blown up_, you blithering _moron_! There's not _going_ to be a body — not _now_, not in four _days_, not _EVER_!" He punctuated the last word by sweeping everything atop Sortolo's desk to the floor with a loud crash.

"Felador, I wish you wouldn't so violently rearrange my furniture," Sortolo remarked with uncharacteristic equanimity, gazing sadly at his strewn papers and such. Felador only grew more enraged at this remark.

"I'll rearrange your _face_ if you don't fix this, Sortolo!"

"I can't do anything about it, Felador: I have to listen to Voynastraja, too. He's the kingpin, remember? Besides," he added, "what's your hurry? _Your_ job is done, it's _mine_ that's beginning. You have almost nothing to do but sit back and watch."

"My job is done, yes, that's precisely the _point_," Felador hissed, "Why should I remain here, tethered by _protocols_, when I could be off to — "

" — to where?" Sortolo interrupted curiously, "Just where do you intend to go? Back to Vunoire? There's no place for you there, or in Frolichthon, and they certainly will not welcome you in Juzgara."

That was true: Felador wasn't sure where he would go. His entire life had revolved for so long around the murder of the dragon whose iniquities had haunted him for even longer; what was he to do now that the deed had been done? There was no returning home, no moving on; his life was effectively complete.

_I suppose_ _I could do further service for the Raven's Wing_, he mused; there was always work to be done in a criminal empire, and the world was a big place.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"Sit down, Scabré," Marius said politely, with just the right touch of weariness; Scabré obeyed, and Marius at opposite him, behind his desk. "I'm going to be honest, my friend: We are having immense difficulties in tracking down this assassin. Spyro and Captain Polemos – along with his ERSOU – are both in the field now, hunting him down." That was a risky move: Though that _was_ the official story in case anyone inquired, no one had cared to do so yet. This was the first time that that version of events had been divulged, and now there was no revoking it.

"So," Marius continued, "I need your help to run down leads in the North Isles."

"You think he might have returned there?" _There's a big question_, Marius thought; he would have to answer cautiously:

"It's possible," he said with a shrug and just the right touch of exhausted vagueness. Scabré swallowed his ambivalence:

"So you want me to head back to Vunoire and…what, exactly?"

"Chase down anything that resembles a lead on that BOLO we promulgated there a few days ago." Scabré waited a moment and then stood:

"Consider it done, my friend."

"Thank you, Scabré," Marius replied heavily; _Piece of cake_…

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"I think it best," Doctor Ambulo said somberly, "that we simply leave her alone for a while, Keo."

"Leave her _alone_?" he repeated, aghast, "But — "

"Keo, please," the doctor interrupted him with infinite gentleness and something akin to pity, "There is nothing more than you or anyone else can do for her. We must let things unfold as they will." Keo wanted to resist — he wanted to fight, to struggle, to tear to pieces the notion that Ambulo had just propounded, to rip it to shreds and obliterate its pieces so thoroughly that its recurrence would be simply laughable —

Instead, his shoulders sagged, his head drooped, and his eyes filled with tears.

"O-Okay, doc…I g-guess you're right," he gulped, hardly able to choke out the words. The doctor put his wing on his shoulder sympathetically.

"Come, Keo, you need some rest."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"How are things on your end?" Marius did not even flinch when he heard the familiar voice; he lifted his head from his paperwork: There was the gray-scaled, green-eyed dragon, standing in the corner, watching him.

"Haven't you been watching?"

"Yes, but not your side of things. Just — you know…"

"Of course," Marius replied soberly, "Well, I've managed to get rid of Scabré for the time being, and I have put in a request that the Warfang PD forward me the results of their ongoing investigation into the events at Strix Laboratories — that ought to arrive in the morning…" He glanced out the window: The sun had set only an hour or two ago, and it was at that exact moment when night fully descended, when the darkness became complete, and the last dregs of day had utterly vanished.

"I have other news." Marius's attention snapped back:

"What?"

"I believe I have discovered, shall we say, the inner intricacies of the Raven's Wing, and rest assured that Sefdomai will be in our clutches before this time tomorrow." That was truly the most phenomenal news that Marius had heard in years. _At last, this can all be over_! "Oh, and by the way, his real name – his _real_ one, not another alias – is _Felador_."

"I'll make a note of that," Marius said, shuffling through his papers in order to do so. "What's the status on my men on the inside?"

"The moles and informants have gotten out, but your deep undercover guy is still in — no heat, though: Even after I take Felador down, I doubt that they'll come anywhere close to catching him."

"Good," Marius grunted wearily; his nap had done little for his energy level, though he _was_ better able to concentrate… He paused in his work and looked up seriously into the younger dragon's brilliant eyes. "Are you headed back out to do the deed now?"

"Not just yet," the dragon replied slowly, an almost painful look coming into his eyes, "There's something I need to do first."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Cynder teetered, trembling violently from the cold as the rain still came down in frightful torrents, unable to hold her balance from sheer exhaustion, unable to fall asleep from sheer terror. She shook, she paced, she cried, and eventually she had collapsed out here on the balcony, the icy mist from the rain chilling the back of her neck.

Oh, to _die_ — what solace it would be! What unimaginable peace! She had thought about it so many times, nearly done it once — what was to stop her now? The last time it had been the bouquet of flowers, whose intoxicating yet painful scent had given her just enough courage to endure the day.

But now the agony was too much — she had to end it; there was no going on…

She glanced around: No use doing it out here on the balcony in the wet; why not be dry?

She arose and walked back into the dormitory, stopped, and sat down; her head turned, and her gaze fell with a mixture of longing and timidity upon the gleaming, wickedly sharp blade on the end of her tail.

It would be so easy: Just lift it to her neck — one good slice, and —

Nothing.

Peaceful oblivion.

_And I'll be with Spyro again_.

That thought broke her heart…and every last remaining ounce of her will to live.

She lifted her tail.

Then, in the corner of her eye, she saw something, something that had not been there only a few moments ago…

A third bouquet.

_Well, it won't stop me this time_, she thought with anguished resoluteness.

She poised the blade at her throat; she could feel its coldness against her scales, not the horrible, torturous coldness of the rain and of despair — but the warm, inviting coolness of death…

"Don't do that, Cynder."

Her heart stopped; her blood froze in her veins.

Not able – not willing, not daring – to believe what she had just heard, she turned, seeking the source of that voice, that voice which was so achingly, so painfully, so impossibly familiar —

Spyro was standing in the doorway to the balcony, his amethyst eyes fixed sadly on her.


	16. The Eye of the Storm

**CHAPTER 16**

"The Eye of the Storm"

Cynder couldn't believe her eyes; she blinked several times, terrified that every time her eyes closed for even a microsecond, he would vanish.

He didn't.

He simply remained standing in the doorway to the balcony, backlit by the pale, tinted light of the rising moon, filtering feebly through the black clouds of the storm, the torrential rain whirling around him like some sort of sinister cloak.

Cynder walked towards him with faltering, tentative, almost childlike steps, horrified by the prospect that he might whisk away in the wind as she approached.

He didn't.

She came to within three feet of him and paused. She thought she could almost feel warmth radiating from him. He said nothing — did not even budge; he simply stood there, eyes fixed on her, filled with some inexpressible anguish…

All at once, Cynder detected something that set her heart to beating for what felt like the first time in eons: his scent. A ghost couldn't have a scent. Surely she wouldn't imagine that —

She flung herself at him and wrapped her wings around him, and every emotion that had wracked her throughout the past few days, every lightning bolt that had ravaged her, every tear that she had shed — they all arose in her with double fury: She quaked so violently that she couldn't stand, and tears poured from her eyes so profusely that she couldn't see.

Spyro wrapped her up in his wings, still saying nothing.

Everything about him – his sweet scent, the warmth of his body against hers, each curve of his musculature, the firm yet gentle way that he held her in his wings, the familiar feel of her head on his shoulder, his warm breath tickling her cheek, the way she could feel his chest rising and falling slowly against hers, his heartbeat pulsing slowly and strongly against her skin – was so achingly familiar that she was completely paralyzed by a flurry of emotions that she couldn't even begin to define.

She was convinced that he was real: Surely no dream could be so cruel…?

No, he had to be real: She could feel him, touch him, taste his scent on the air as it wreathed around her, hear his breathing, see his amethyst eyes sparkling in the darkness. He was touching her, too — his wings were wrapped around her, holding her tightly to him; that could not be a dream…could it…?

Cynder stood there, her entire body shaking, heart pounding frantically against her ribs, head swimming, tears cascading from her eyes, trickling down her shoulder…

Wait a minute — those weren't her tears…

Forcing herself to stop crying for a moment and leaning her head back a bit, she saw that those really _weren't_ her tears: They were Spyro's; they were running down his cheeks and dripping onto her shoulder.

"Sorry," he murmured thickly. That single extraordinary word stupefied her: She had no idea what to say, so she simply hugged him again, a bit more naturally, a bit less desperately, savoring just a bit more the warmth and familiarity of his body…

"This…this is r-real…r-right?" she croaked after a while, her voice hoarse from lack of use and from tears; she looked him dead in the eye. Spyro smiled weakly:

"Yeah…yeah, it is."

"You would say that in a dream," Cynder insisted, knowing that if this were not real, she would surely die. "How do I know — ?"

Spyro kissed her.

That sealed it: He was real. No dream could fake that. She knew that that made no real sense, but she didn't care: He had kissed her. That was enough.

Spyro leaned his head back, still smiling sadly:

"Real enough?" She replied by kissing him back — not one of his gentle, warm kisses, but one of her fiery, passionate ones. He received it with a very strange mixture of surprise and what to her resembled compunction. When she finally came back for air, she started sobbing again.

Who could say why?

Why had she passed so many days in living hell?

"Where have you been? What happened to you?" she managed to gasp after a while. To her surprise, Spyro's tears, which had begun to fade, returned with renewed and redoubled agony. He swallowed with visible difficulty. Try as he might, though, he seemed unable to keep his composure: He started trembling and took her into his wings again, holding her tightly as though scared that she would try and run away (nothing could be further from her mind).

"Oh, Cynder, I'm so sorry!" Those were the last words that she had been anticipating, and she sat speechless as he caressed her tenderly with his wings with the kind of fondling and adoring attention that one gives a loved one whom one has wronged.

"F-For what?" she stammered, utterly baffled. Spyro looked at her, tears brimming in his eyes; he blinked them away, sighed, and dropped his wings. Cynder immediately felt colder.

"C'mon, Cynder, come with me," he murmured almost miserably, "Lemme…lemme try and explain…" She followed him – as their daughter Arial had used to do when she was a little child, so attached had she been to her father – stupefied and confused; he led her onto the balcony, into the cold of the deepening night.

The blackness was almost complete, with only vague tufts of moonlight and feathers of lightning to attempt to pierce its stony façade. The din of the storm howled around them, like the reverberation of the bellows of some monstrous beast from the depths of its cavern lair. The rain and wind lashed about with blind fury, pressing against but unable to actually invade the balcony: There she and Spyro were shielded from all but the misty draft of the storm's violent fringes.

Spyro sidled over to the left corner so that the lip of the doorway blocked them from view except for from the northernmost edges of the bedchamber; he sat down and motioned feebly for her to do the same. She sat next to him and snuggled up as close to him as she could possibly get, so close that she was practically leaning on him.

Spyro didn't seem to mind: He said nothing and wrapped his wing tightly around her. For a long minute he simply sat there, gazing out unseeingly at the black clouds before them, absently twining and untwining his tail with hers. She let him do it — she wasn't about to protest anything he did. He could have asked her to hang upside down from the balcony in the pouring rain…and she would have done it.

But he was beginning to make her nervous: There were still glimmers of tears in his eyes, which were unmoving, fixed indivertibly on the sea of darkness that was both sky and earth. He had a look of anguish and compunction that was terrifying to her.

What was wrong?

Should she ask him?

She was torn between fear of the question and fear of the response. What could be so agonizing that he should look this way? She had _never_ seen him like this — not since Ignitus died…

Finally, after several minutes, Spyro sighed, took a deep breath, and began:

"Okay, here goes: Cynder…I faked my death." Cynder blinked: _What_? "I knew that Felador – Sefdomai, that is, but his real name is Felador – was closing in, and…I couldn't take the chance that he would hurt you or…well — he almost _killed_ Lucas!" His tone was fearful, as though he worried that she would think him scurrilous for his actions…yet the doleful guilt in his eyes testified that that was exactly how he viewed himself.

"I…I thought that if I removed myself from the equation," he mumbled, "then I could track him down myself and put an end to this. I just — I never counted on how much it would hurt you. I…oh, Cynder, I'm so, so, so sorry." He trailed off, his voice slurred by tears and dejection; he seemed almost unable to continue, but he forced himself to do so:

"I kept an eye on you between tracking down Felador and reporting what I found back here to Marius — he's the only one who knew that I was really alive. When I saw how devastated you were – how devastated _I'd_ made you – I…I nearly died from shame. I'm so sorry, Cynder," he repeated.

Cynder had no idea what to say: Of all of the possible explanations that she had imagined in the previous quarter of an hour since he had appeared, this was not among them. She couldn't tell how she felt about it.

"When did you decide to do this?" Cynder asked dazedly. Spyro seemed anxious that her neutral tone smacked of anger. When he replied, his voice was nervous and timid:

"When I interrogated Ferraita, she told me about Felador's trap, his plan to blow up that building with me inside. So, when I got there, I made sure Polemos didn't enter, and I…well, I sprang the trap…only I wasn't inside. I got out before the explosion, worked my way into the Enchanted Forest, and circled back to the Temple to meet with Marius." He waited a moment before asking pitifully, not able to meet her eyes, ducking his head in shame, "C-Can you ever forgive me, Cynder?"

She looked at him in surprise: He was _begging_! She had never heard that before. After a long, tense moment's thought, she stood from where she sat, slipped out from under the warmth of his wing, and sat back down directly in front of him.

"Spyro…I'm gonna tell you something, and I want you to hear me out…and not interrupt, okay?" Spyro looked supremely confused – and a little scared – by her request, but he nodded nonetheless. Anguish appeared to have shut his throat. Cynder took a deep breath and continued, slowly and deliberately, in a soft, quiet voice:

"When I woke up after Convexity, I knew nothing. I didn't know the first thing about being…well, _me_; I had no idea what it was to have friends, to laugh, to share, to trust, to love — you taught me all of that. Do you remember those nights we spent, just sitting awake, talking?"

"Yeah," Spyro murmured.

"Well, I don't think you ever realized how much those impacted me. I had tried to _murder_ you — more than once! You didn't stop at saving my life – which was more than enough – you turned right around and stayed up all night with me talking with me, telling me about…everything — just talking. My life was nothing, my heart was empty: You gave me yours.

"You never once stigmatized me for what I had been before: You trusted me…you loved me. Your brother never did," she added lightly. "Sparx never trusted me, never forgave me at all — I know you always stuck up for him, but you and I both know that he never forgave me for what I had done. You did."

"But Cynder," Spyro finally blurted out, unable to contain himself, "you were under — "

" — Malefor's spell, sure," Cynder finished calmly, "You know as well as I do that that's not entirely true: I…I had moments when I was perfectly lucid, when I could have resisted Malefor's power, could have _fought_…but I didn't. I was too scared. You forgave even that.

"My point is," she concluded, wrapping her wings around him and drawing a little nearer, "that if you could forgive me for all of that – for all of the pain, the grief, the _death_ that I had maybe unwillingly but definitely unresistingly caused – for all I had done against _you_, with such dark motives — if you could forgive that, and trust me, and love me nonetheless…what kind of pathetic, inhumane _monster_ would I be if I couldn't forgive what you've done here solely in the name of protecting both me and our kids?"

Spyro looked stupefied by her words, but she meant every single one. There was a part of her that wanted to be angry with him, to resent him, to feel bitter and cold…but it was drowned in the part that simply wanted to hug him and to hold fast to him and to kiss him and simply to love him as he had loved her. She chided her own anger and quashed it.

"Anyway, Spyro," she said, leaning in close to him and dropping her voice to a soft whisper, barely a breath, "if you need my forgiveness, you've got it…but I'm not convinced that you _do_ need it.

"A very wise dragon once told me – in a cave beneath a waterfall in a secluded valley at the edge of the Enchanted Forest, when I felt like dying of the shame of being such a burden to him, of having done him so much harm – that…'love is not earned: It is only _given_…freely.'"

That said, she kissed him, all of the passion and joy at seeing him alive, at having him here before her after three days of dreadful, horrible, indescribably agonizing isolation — it all flowed into that kiss; they did not break apart for a long while.

When they finally did separate, there was a weird mixture of emotions in Spyro's eyes: stupefaction, elation, and that awkwardness peculiar to the recipients of magnanimity. He smiled genuinely for the first time since he had arrived and hugged her so tightly that she thought that he might break her ribs. She could feel a sense of rapturous relief flooding through every fiber of his body as he held her close and whispered, "Thank you, Cynder!" into her ear over and over again.

Feeling his joy confluent with her own, Cynder relaxed fully and felt herself inundated with warm relief and a sense of dreamy bliss; she returned his embrace and lost herself in the familiarity of it all — she remembered a night at Hagia Falls…

They remained that way, wrapped up in each other's wings, for a long moment, the storm raging around them. They might have been the only two dragons in the world — but the moment that that thought entered her head, Cynder opened her mouth and asked him:

"Oh gosh, what do I do about the kids?" Spyro looked confused at first, and then quickly become crestfallen.

"I…I dunno, Cynder," he murmured, "I don't think it would be wise to tell anyone — "

"Forget the kids," Cynder interrupted anxiously, a second thought following the first, "Marius and Doctor Ambulo have been keeping them from me anyway — but what about _Keo_?" Spyro's face turned dark and lugubrious. "Spyro, he's been trying so hard, giving so much — he's given everything trying to keep me from slitting my own throat! He's…he's gonna be devastated when he finds out — "

"I know," Spyro mumbled, "I've been watching him, too. I…I hadn't counted on this hitting him so hard either. I'm gonna have to talk with him…apologize to him…" Cynder looked at him: He was growing morose again, so she kissed him gently on the cheek, which always made him smile blushingly.

"So you said that this was all to track down Felador, and since you know his real name, you must've gotten somewhere with that. Tell me." If he detected that she was trying to change the subject to one which didn't depress him so (and he probably did detect it — Spyro was no one's fool)…he said nothing.

"I've infiltrated their network and…well, let's just say that by this time tomorrow…" He smiled broadly, and his amethyst eyes grew brilliant: "…this whole thing will be over." Cynder smiled – ignoring the implication of the way that he had said that – and hugged him tightly.

"Thank heavens," she whispered. Spyro, still smiling, gazed at her with a peculiar look in his eye. It was a look that he had given her often at Hagia Falls.

"What?" she asked, not succeeding at repressing a chuckle at the sheer intensity of his gaze. Spyro blushed and shook his head. It amazed her that he still blushed around her after so many years and given the degree of familiarity between them.

"Nothing," he muttered with a smile, "It's...It's nothing."

"What is it?" Cynder insisted, grinning. Spyro sighed, smiled, and looked her directly in the eye, as though he could stare straight into her soul:

"Well…you look…you look beautiful…ravishing…"

She was a horrible mess.

"And," he continued, "I just sometimes find myself wondering at how fortunate I am to be with you. And now you've forgiven me for…for having hurt you so badly…" He dropped his eyes. "…and I…I'm overawed, Cynder." Cynder was totally taken aback, but she readily understood what he meant: She had felt exactly the same way about him upon learning that he had saved her life in Convexity, and after so many minute acts of kindness at Hagia Falls.

She smiled warmly and kissed him, this time full on the lips. When they broke apart, Cynder was unable to repress a yawn from wracking her body. Spyro smiled and cocked his head.

"Why don't you get some sleep, Cynder?"

"No, no," she protested, shaking her head tiredly, "I don't want to lose a single moment — " Spyro silenced her with a hug and a single whisper in her ear:

"Cynder." She fell silent in his wings. He gave her a sympathetic look: "Cynder, you look absolutely exhausted. I've been watching, remember? You've hardly slept in the past three days. _Get some sleep_," he insisted softly.

"But I haven't seen you in so long — "

"I don't have to go until dawn, Cynder," he cut across her gently, "It's hardly an hour past nightfall."

"But — "

"Please, Cynder," he pleaded silkily, "Just a couple of hours…please? I promise I'll still be here when you wake up."

"Suppose I oversleep?"

"I'll wake you before I go." Cynder sighed.

"Oh…oh, okay." She had felt like resisting further, for the thought of wasting even the tiniest of instants of his company after having suffered so long without it was repugnant to her, but the exhaustion of the past few days and of all of the emotional storms that she had weathered up to this point was crashing down upon her shoulders; even now, she could hardly keep her eyes open.

"C'mon," Spyro whispered, "Come lie down here." He lay down there in the remotest corner of the balcony. Cynder lay next to him, pressing herself against his body; he draped his wing over her and twined his tail tightly around hers. "There," he said softly to her as she leaned her head on his shoulder, "Now you'll know if I even _move_, let alone try and leave. You just rest, okay?" Cynder, reminded of Hagia Falls, and overwhelmed now as she had been then by the simple selflessness and affection in him, smiled, fighting to keep her eyes open for a few seconds longer.

"Okay, Spyro." Spyro kissed her — a long, slow, passionate kiss, a kiss that filled her with a vast, paradisiacal contentment; when his lips finally separated from hers, she could still feel the trill of it running along her spine, still taste him in her mouth…

"G'night, Cynder."

"G'night, Spyro." She lay her head back down on his shoulder and closed her eyes, drifting off towards sleep. All at once she felt Spyro's hot, sweet breath tickle her ear:

"I love you, Cynder." Smiling blindly in the darkness; enveloped in the warmth of his presence, of his body, of his love; resting in perfect peace, she replied with the truest words that she had ever spoken:

"I love you too, Spyro."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Spyro lay next to Cynder, listening to the sound of her soft breathing, feeling the slight rustle of her chest expanding and contracting — she was lying so close to him that every movement was transmitted between them. He sat very still, not wanting to disturb her.

Around them, the storm that had plagued the land for the past several days roared in all of its fury, with velvety shadows ensconcing everything in a soft shroud; lightning split the air like silver ribbons, and thunder crashed around them in peals, as though the black heavens were some sublime and mysterious belfry. The rain rippled through the night like an argentine curtain.

There was a surreal, ineffable beauty about the storm — a freshness…a blissfulness. Spyro felt like the entire world had faded away into the tempestuous umbra so that he and Cynder were left all alone together, nestled up next to each other on that balcony, an island amidst of the sea of storms. He half wished that the night would never end: It didn't seem right that so sacred, so powerful, so affecting a night should end, be rent by the rude light of day, be shattered in the blindness of the light, the naïveté of fanciful day-dwellers.

Living by night the past few days had resurrected old memories of Hagia Falls: He had spent so many nights there, lying awake as he was now, just watching Cynder, thinking, feeling, passing minutes and hours in that solemn and profound meditation that the night brought upon the world. Above all, the night brought to him something that he had always treasured, something of which he had had little ever since he had left the swamps forever on that fateful day so many years ago, something that he had always desire to give to Cynder and to his children:

Peace.

He often thought that if he could pass his entire life in night, in the simple, profound, and silent bliss that was the night, a bliss that echoed not the chaotic and paroxysmal joy of circumstance and warmth, but which echoed the cool and indescribable splendor of the heavens veiled in the shadows from the light which would not dare to show its pale face before the radiant one of the darkness — then he would be utterly and dreamily content.

Spyro glanced at Cynder and felt that ineffable emotion that made him want to cry and laugh and sing for joy all at the same time. He turned and kissed her gently on the cheek. Her beautiful eyes fluttered open.

"Hnn…?"

"Sorry," Spyro whispered, not wanting to break the supreme virginity of the nocturnal silence — which was no so much a silence as it was a profundity. "I didn't mean to wake you. Go on back to sleep." Cynder yawned and blinked sleepily.

"What time is it?"

"About an hour past midnight," he replied; he had sat contemplating the night for a good three or four hours.

"Then that'll do," she said promptly, smiling at him.

"You still look exhausted," Spyro noted concernedly, "Are you sure — ?"

"Yes," Cynder said silkily, cutting across him, her eyes gleaming gently, "I'll go back to sleep once you've gone. For now…" She trailed off, simply staring at him with those emerald eyes. Spyro smiled back at her, somehow unable to remove his gaze from hers.

He didn't want to, not for anything in the world.

He leaned in and kissed her again, on the lips this time, pausing before his mouth met hers, just as he always did, in case she wanted to pull back —

She never did.

She didn't now. It was several seconds before their lips separated, and when they did, Spyro saw a slight tint of sadness in Cynder's eyes.

"I wish I could go with you," she murmured. Spyro smiled sympathetically and, if it were possible, drew her a little closer.

"I know, but it's just one more night. By this time tomorrow…" He trailed off, remembering that he had already told her that. He slipped off into the sleepy fog of the night for a moment, and before he noticed it, he was yawning. Cynder grinned at him, and he felt his face burn with embarrassment.

"Sorry," he mumbled. Cynder laughed softly.

"Tired?"

"I guess so," Spyro muttered, not able to repress a smile.

"Dawn's hours away yet," she observed, just touching the tip of her nose to his, "Why don't you get some sleep?"

"I can't," Spyro objected rather lamely, "I have to be awake so that I can go…"

"I'll wake you," Cynder promised him. Spyro stared at her; he wasn't even sure why he felt sleepy: He had slept most of that morning and afternoon, and it hadn't exactly been a trying day. Maybe it was just the nocturnal spell…

_Oh well_…

"Okay — but just _two_ hours," Spyro stipulated. Cynder smiled broadly at him.

"You got it, Spyro." Spyro lay his head down, and Cynder laid her own next to him; he could feel her cuddling up next to him, and the profound tranquility of the night closed his eyelids for him.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Cynder felt herself enshrouded in warmth: She was nestled into the curve of Spyro's flank, his tail was wound around hers, and his wing lay across her back. His long, deep breaths were almost hypnotic.

She had always been spellbound by his breathing — such a simple thing though it was. In the first weeks after Convexity, when she had spent those sleepless nights with him, after he had fallen asleep, worn out from cheering her up, she had often found herself so beleaguered by chaotic thoughts – the thoughts of who she was, what she was to do, and how she was to find her way – looming like colossal specters in her mind, so overwhelmed that she had simply taken to emptying her mind by listening to the sound of Spyro breathing next to her.

It soothed her…immensely. It always had, ever since those days.

When he was asleep, he always breathed the same way: deep, long, tranquil, serene, mouth just barely open. The simple peace with which he slept – the peace of a mind not laden with shame of the past or fear of the future – had always left her almost awestruck. At Hagia Falls, it had often been solely by the sound of his breathing that she had been able to fall asleep. It was strange, she knew, but there were so many emotions buried within her associated with it.

He had already been asleep for one of the two hours upon which she had insisted, and she had passed the entire time simply watching him, as she knew that he had watched her so many times before. She wondered if this was how he felt watching over her like some sort of benevolent cherub: pensive, warm, tranquil, and ineffably full of love.

Even now, after all that had happened, after all of the chaos and the blood and the tears of the past days, he still slumbered next to her, looking utterly and profoundly at peace. She couldn't help but smile to herself as she watched him.

Apparently, he had been roughing things for the past few days: He was a little dirtier, a little scruffier than he usually was; there were little nicks on his face, as though he had been forcing his way through dense and uncooperative foliage; and he looked just a tiny bit thinner than before — though it was hard to tell since she had emaciated so much over the previous three days. She felt so small next to him that it was a little scary.

Her mind kept trying to bug her with thoughts of Keo and of what on Earth she was going to tell him if he showed up tomorrow morning. She was convinced that she would be unable to feign the horrible, deathly trance in which she had found herself while believing Spyro dead; there was simply no replicating it. Keo knew her well enough to see through her façades, and she wouldn't know where to begin attempting to verbalize what had happened to her tonight.

Though her mind nagged her, Cynder felt herself slipping into the sort of dreamy lethargy that denied all anxiety and, really, all thought that wasn't directed towards things sublime and unearthly. Her heart superseded her mind and started filling her consciousness with memories of her and Spyro — the most sundry and random assortment of images and feelings that she could ever remember experiencing all at once.

Cynder glanced at Spyro and felt a little saddened at the sight of the little cuts that peppered his face; she shifted her head a little and kissed his nose very gently, just barely touching it with her lips.

Nevertheless, his amethyst eyes – glowing in the thick darkness – opened, slowly and serenely, like a flower opening to the sun. He glanced at her and smiled tiredly.

"What're you doin' to me?" he asked with feigned indignation. She smiled at his weary playfulness.

"Nothing," she answered softly, "I'm just a little concerned about all these cuts you've got on you." Spyro swiveled his eyes around as though hoping to catch sight of the offending cuts.

"Don't worry about that, Cynder — they're just little nicks. Branches, y'know…" he murmured, his eyes half closing, his words slurring a little. Cynder chuckled a little at him and then kissed his nose again.

"What was that for?" he asked teasingly. She gave him a very serious, very contented look and told him something that she had said to him on several occasions before when he had asked that very question:

"I didn't know I needed a reason to kiss you." He smiled before closing his eyes again.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Spyro found himself kissing Cynder again, holding her closer, not wanting even the slightest separation between them — the minutest crack felt like a frigid abyss, like the vast chasm of space between the stars.

Cynder had given him the two hours he had requested, and, after he had fallen asleep again after the momentary but not unwelcome interruption, she had woken him up precisely at the expiration of those two hours. They had stood to stretch their legs but had quickly settled back into the same corner, sitting this time. One thing had led to another, and now, about an hour before dawn, Spyro judged, they were sitting there, wrapped up in each other's wings, gazing at each other.

"I wish you didn't have to go," Cynder said, her voice growing gloomy for the first time since he had woken up. Spyro nuzzled her cheek tenderly with his nose.

"I know," he whispered, "but I do."

"Yeah…" she murmured, grimacing slightly, "It just…sucks." Spyro chuckled at her eloquence.

"Let's just enjoy this last hour or so."

"Okay." She relaxed a little, laying her head on his shoulder and closing her eyes contentedly. Spyro held her closer, pressing his cheek against hers. The storm still bellowed around them; Spyro wondered if the dawn would even penetrate its tenebrous depths.

Aside from the thunder and the rain, there was a profound silence about everything, as though the whole world recognized that the peaceful night would soon give way to vainglorious day, and that it should capitalize on its last hours of charming and touching serenity.

How did they pass that hour? Spyro had no clue: All that he knew was that as he was holding Cynder, feeling her heart beating against her chest, her chest against his chest, he saw the first degree of illumination that indicated the dawn; soon streaks of color began to peek their way through the black skies. The horizon grew distinguishable.

"I gotta go, Cynder," he murmured. Cynder lifted her head and looked at him: There was deep anguish in her eyes, but she nodded, and they broke their embrace. Immediately, Spyro felt colder, more anxious, and almost as though a part of himself had died.

"I know you do," Cynder said, several seconds late. Spyro forced himself to smile, not liking to see her saddened.

"It'll be all right." He hugged her tightly and gave her a kiss on the cheek; the moment they separated she kissed him back, almost forcefully, on the mouth. The feverishness of it caught him off guard, and he sat in silence after she finally broke the kiss.

"I know… Spyro…I thought I'd lost you once." She dropped her eyes, which were now full of tears, "I can't do it again." Spyro hugged her again, just as he had hugged Arial the time that she had awoken him in the night, a little girl scared of the dark.

"You won't," he promised her, warmly and seriously. She nodded a little absently, looking him dead in the eye.

"Do you remember," she asked, "what I told you the first time you had to leave the Temple – on a mission – after Arial was born?" He remembered that painful day all too well: It had broken his heart to see the confused, tearful look in his little daughter's eyes as he was forced to go…

"Yeah," he managed to reply, suddenly choked up; he smiled weakly and quoted: "'Keep your head down and your eyes forward. Do what you have to do; come home safe.'" Cynder nodded, her eyes suddenly full of tears; he instinctively moved forward and embraced her, giving her a quizzical look.

"Yeah, that's it," she murmured through her tears, "but you forgot the most important part." She returned his embrace. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Cynder paced the room, torn between a queer inner calm, due to Spyro's return, and a supreme but almost petty agitation, due to the thorny prospect of having to face those dragons who had last seen her as the destroyed, suicidal wreck who she could no longer even pretend to be. What could she do?

She had had to practice plenty of deception in her time, but nothing like this — nothing so close to her heart, nothing so profound…

She didn't think that she could do it…

…She _knew_ that she couldn't do it.

_What am I supposed to _do? Cynder groaned to herself; she glanced out the balcony doorway at the swiftly lightening sky: Spyro had left only minutes before, but the light had already increased remarkably; she could already make out the lines of the trees over the top of the balcony's edge. The sky was as gray as possible without being black, streaked with tints of purplish blue and a splash of dilute yellow.

Cynder sighed. It was no use trying to bother with it now: Spyro had been right about her being exhausted; while he had been with her, she had hardly felt her tiredness, but now that he was gone, all the fatigue of three days of despair and insomnia had smothered her in an avalanche of weariness; there were blizzards in her brain, and all of her thoughts were lost in now.

Cynder turned to face the dawn, feeling nothing but insurmountable, almost depressing exhaustion. She sighed again. _I suppose this'll have to wait_.

The trouble…was that she didn't know how long it could.

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"It's been three days, Sortolo!" Felador snarled, "I'm just about sick of this sitting around!"

"You have nothing to be anxious about, Felador," the pusillanimous twit replied blearily, "What's another twenty-four hours?"

"A waste of _time_, that's what!" Felador roared. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door; even though it was not his office, Felador barked, "Come in!" The door opened, and there stood the page boy who had been popping up around him for the past few days.

"Can I help you?" Sortolo asked him unhelpfully.

"Actually, sir," the dragon replied meekly, his scintillating green eyes dropping obsequiously, "I came to speak with Felador."

"What do you want?" Felador growled, not even looking at him, but turning away in disdain; Sortolo sat at his desk and focused on sifting through papers, no longer paying attention.

"Well, _sir_, you can start by giving me one reason to not kill you where you stand."

It wasn't just the words that shocked Felador; the tone of the dragon's voice had changed completely: He was no longer the fawning, dewy-eyed page that he had been for the past few days; he was now cold, ferocious, and, above all, dangerous. Felador turned around.

The page was gone.

In his place stood —

"Spyro," Felador whispered stupidly.

The purple dragon stood before him; every muscle in his face was rigid with fury, and his amethyst eyes burned like stars:

There was death in those eyes.


	17. The Raven's Requiem

**CHAPTER 17**

"The Raven's Requiem"

Felador staggered against the side of the desk, absolutely thunderstruck; Sortolo arose and then fell back again, mortified: Felador thought he perceived him shudder minutely.

"It cannot be," Sortolo whispered; his voice trembled just as subtly as his body. Spyro cast a frigid glance upon him: a look full of immense contempt.

"It is," he spat, "so shut up and get back against the wall. You're useless to me, so one wrong move and you're gonna be a pile of ash on the floor!" Sortolo obeyed; Felador had done enough psychoanalysis of the purple dragon to know that he was unequivocally _not_ lying: He would do it…in a heartbeat —

_Perhaps even gladly_…

_There's the weakness_, Felador remarked to himself. _Okay, calm down, Felador — there might just be a way out of this yet_…

Spyro cast his amethyst eyes, simultaneously fiery and ineffably cold – no words would ever do justice to the simple and almost majestic wintriness of his gaze – on Felador with an absolutely deadly look, as though he knew exactly what he was thinking and was condemning him for it.

"You," he growled, his voice soft as a breeze…and as tumultuous as a thunderclap, "You…you…" He seemed so consumed with rage that he could not verbalize it; yet at the same time, he was perfectly still, perfectly in control; he was like a slab of cold marble covering a blazing volcano: a volcano primed for eruption.

"I," Felador said simply, hoping his jocularity would provoke Spyro to a fit of savagery; an instant later, he found himself on the floor, Spyro's claws planted on his neck, his aquiline eyes gleaming mere inches from his face.

"_Don't_…_you_…_dare_," he snarled. He left this remark unexplained, but Felador got the message: This was no vengeance call; this was the solemn trial of _justice_.

That shade of difference – the difference between the light of the flame and the light of the sun, between the heavens and the blackness of space, between the shadow of the impenetrable and the shadow of the dubious, between the night of peace and the night of agony – meant everything in the world.

It was a difference that Felador had come to appreciate…and which he had used – and would now again use – to his advantage:

"You won't do this, Spyro," he whispered, almost mockingly, feigning meekness beneath the young dragon's claws. Spyro's eyes flickered.

"Won't I?" Spyro asked; his voice was deadly serious. No joking, no vitriol, no anger — just simple, pure, unadulterated wrath. That was a bad sign.

_Relax, Felador, you can work this out_.

"No, you won't," Felador replied calmly.

"And why won't I?" Spyro asked, still in that unnaturally even voice. His voice was like the plain of a glacier: stark, cold, flat, and lashed by the winds.

"Because you're the arbiter of _justice_," Felador taunted; out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sortolo, aghast. "You won't murder me here in cold blood."

"I have no intentions of murdering you," Spyro said quietly.

"Exactly — "

"I," Spyro cut across him harshly, his voice growing, if it were possible, even colder, his gaze harder, "intend to _execute _you."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

Spyro saw Felador's eyes flicker almost imperceptibly as he said the words.

"You're a murderer and a traitor," he hissed ferociously, "and heaven only knows what else. Personally, I don't really care what else you are: I know enough. The only thing that I _don't_ know…is _why_.

"_Why_ did you do all of this? _Why_ did you _murder_ all of those people: Parcel, Exhumor, Hunter, Sparx — not to mention all of the people in between, _and_ the two you almost killed, Kain and _my son_? _Why_?" He found his voice becoming more and more vicious as he spoke; Felador made no immediate reply. Suddenly, though, his eyes grew hard, and he spoke, in a low, almost incensed growl:

"You want to know _why_? I'll tell you why…

"Fourteen years ago, in a little checkpoint building on the border of Vunoire and Frolichthon, you let a dragon die…my brother." Spyro didn't understand at first, and he was almost surprised by the response, but then a conversation came back to him — it had hardly been more than a week ago, if that, yet it felt like eons ago:

Natalia, King Parcel's former secretary, had come to him to tell him of the king's assassination…and that just prior to it, there had been a "strange dragon" who had "babbled" some "drivel" about —

"_Croiseau_?" Spyro demanded, nearly, in his shock, forgetting to be wrathful. "Croiseau was your _brother_?" Then, his rage, which had been slipping away in wake of – he couldn't help himself – pity, returned, redoubled: "And you _murdered_ all of those people simply because I couldn't save your brother from being killed?!"

"From being _murdered_!" Felador corrected him fiercely, apparently forgetting that Spyro had his claws clamped directly on his throat; his eyes blazed with fury…but no grief: "I figured that you deserved the same feeling — so I murdered your brother!"

"I didn't murder Croiseau," Spyro said hotly, "I tried to _save_ him!"

"You didn't," Felador growled.

"Because Javert had the drop on _both_ of us!" Spyro hissed.

"You still should've stopped him!"

"You don't think I tried?" Spyro replied, actually exasperated.

"Not…hard…enough," Felador growled.

"So you decided," Spyro said slowly, nearly quaking with fury, "that you would just go about murdering people to get _revenge_?" Felador grinned wickedly.

"You can't imagine my delight at seeing you weeping over your brother's body," he said in a voice that was truly insane; then he became abruptly savage: "Just like I did over mine. That was the last time I ever shed a tear," he confessed shamelessly.

"Well, it won't be tears that you're gonna be shedding in a moment," Spyro spat coldly. He looked up at Sortolo: "What role did you have in all of this?" Sortolo looked supremely terrified; he simply stood there stupidly.

"He's just a pawn," Felador said contemptuously, casting the dumbstruck dragon a withering glance.

"Please…" Sortolo begged, "You cannot kill us — "

"Oh really?" Spyro whispered dangerously, "What's to stop me?"

"You are," Felador nearly cackled, "You won't just murder us — you said so yourself. We're not resisting — you have no cause — "

"That's what Javert thought," Spyro retorted viciously, "He banked on my letting him go simply to avoid having to kill him 'in cold blood' — and I assume you know what happened to him." Spyro dropped his voice and narrowed his eyes as he added that last part, the image of Javert, lanced through the heart by a bolt of ice, dying in a pool of his own blood at Spyro's feet, flashing through his mind.

"Yes, but you're the leader of a nation now — that won't look good for you. Besides, military law: You have to give me a trial." Spyro laughed — actually laughed:

"You want a _trial_? You forget that I helped _make_ the laws: You'll be executed in a heartbeat! What's the difference between my killing you here and them killing you there?"

"A trial," Felador replied with simple haughtiness. _He actually thinks I'm going to let him go_. _Well_, he thought coldly, _that's what Javert thought, too_.

"Well," Spyro said darkly, "you've already had your trial."

Before Felador could reply in any way – before his eyes could even register surprise, fear, or whatever emotion was about to flit through his mind – Spyro jerked his claws, slicing cleanly through the dragon's neck.

Blood eructed forth in a crimson geyser, misting Spyro's face and spattering the ceiling and opposite wall; it quickly petered out as Felador attempted to gasp for breath through his severed trachea, his eyes widening in complete shock. Sortolo staggered, aghast.

Spyro locked eyes with Felador, the dragon who had murdered so many, who had nearly murdered his own son, who had caused so much destruction, so much pain, so much grief — and he watched, calmly and coldly, as the hollow light left his eyes forever.

Spyro rose from Felador's body, his face still speckled in his blood, and felt…

…nothing.

There was no remorse, no compunction, no satisfaction, no savage joy: just the somber tranquility that accompanied the bloody arbitration of justice.

Spyro turned to Sortolo:

"If you don't intend to end up the same way, I suggest you follow me out of here," he said in a perfectly even voice, "One false move, and…" He gestured unnecessarily at the body of Felador. "Let's go."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"Are you sure that I should just walk in like this, Marius?" Spyro asked nervously, walking alongside the intelligence officer who had stood by him through it all.

"Yes sir, quite sure," Marius replied coolly, "They are all wise, mature dragons, and besides, there is no easy way to break news like this." Spyro couldn't argue with that, so they continued walking. Soon they came to a door; Marius opened it, and they entered.

It was a little room on the west side of the Temple — Spyro wasn't even sure what it was used for. There were windows all along the left side that allowed brilliant sunlight to stream into the room — it had been over twelve hours since he had killed Felador, and Sortolo had long since been locked up.

Four dragons were in the room: On the immediate left, not far from the door, standing next to the windows, backlit by the glorious spring sunlight, stood Cynder. Not far to her left was Keo, looking supremely haggard; to his left, on the right side of the room, were Doctor Ambulo and Lieutenant Colonel Cognova. They all – except for Cynder – froze in utter and indescribable shock when they saw Spyro enter the room; Keo staggered and nearly collapsed.

"What the — ?" Lieutenant Colonel Cognova began; Doc Ambulo remained perplexedly silent; Cynder looked around nervously; Keo lurched forward a little as though he were trying to approach Spyro, who stepped into the middle of the room.

"What on Earth is this?" demanded Cognova.

"I owe you all an explanation," Spyro said quietly; he briefly told them everything — everything that had happened in the preceding three days. When he was finished – which was remarkably soon – he stopped and stood in awkward, tense silence in the middle of the room.

Lieutenant Colonel Cognova was the first to speak: He rounded on Marius and demanded, more astonished than angry:

"You knew about this?"

"He alone," Spyro interceded, "_I_ ordered him not to divulge it. For the plan to work, no one could know."

"You seem singularly serene about this, Cynder," Doctor Ambulo said quietly, looking at her. Cynder grimaced; she looked unsure of how to respond.

"That's because I told her," Spyro said, glancing at her, "Night before last." Keo rounded on her, almost hurt:

"That's why you were so weird yesterday!" Cynder nodded awkwardly. Spyro walked right up to Keo, looked him squarely in his bright blue eyes, and spoke, in a low, soulful voice:

"Keo…I'm so sorry. I…I betrayed you. I should've trusted you." Keo looked at him for a long time, his eyes completely indecipherable. Spyro couldn't tell if he was about to burst into tears, scream, or just collapse: He seemed overwhelmed. Finally, he sighed.

"It's okay, Spyro — really. I…I learned a long time ago that I could trust you. I…I understand why — really, I do."

"I should've told you, anyway," Spyro insisted, shaking his head. Keo smiled wearily at him.

"Nah — y'know what they say: 'One person's a secret, two's a conspiracy'…"

"…'and three's common knowledge,'" Spyro completed with a soft smile. They hugged.

"Well, now that that's settled," broke in Cognova just a bit crassly, "what now?"

"Everyone who knew about this is in here right now," Ambulo noted.

"Not quite," interpolated Marius, "Captain Polemos and his team are still in the field — I've already sent for them."

"Have they found anything?" asked Ambulo.

"They've done some minor damage," Marius said almost evasively, "gathered quite a bit of useful intel, but other than that, their job is done. They could use a break."

"I think we all could," said Cynder. Spyro had been thinking the same thing, but somehow it had seemed obtrusive and insulting for him to say it.

"There's too much to do, though," Cognova groaned, sounding utterly exhausted, "What about all of the bodies to count, all of the families to whom we owe explanation? What about Strix Labs — they'll be wanting answers! What about Juzgara — he murdered their _king_! Then there's — "

"Honestly, Colonel," Doctor Ambulo interrupted him with a weary but pensive look, "I think that that can wait one more day. We've had nine of grief — why not one of rest?"

Spyro agreed, feeling himself overwhelmed by a strange feeling that was almost sad but indisputably _tired_. As he kissed Cynder on the cheek and gave Keo another reassuring hug, all he could think was: _Has it only been nine days_?

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"So this was all about Croiseau?" Cynder asked hours later as she and Spyro lay next to each other on the balcony as they had two nights before: he with his wing draped across her, she snuggled up next to him as close as she could be. Spyro found himself feeling melancholy, and he was simply staring off into the deepening night.

One part of him was lighthearted and joyous at the fact that it was all over, that the shadow that had been hanging over him for days was now finally lifted; but another part of him could not expulse the image of Felador's blood spurting into the air, could not expunge the taste of that blood as it sprayed his face, could not silence the sound of his breath gurgling up through his ravaged windpipe —

And above all, he felt – for reasons that he could not even begin to explain – overwhelmingly, impossibly _tired_.

"Yeah…sounds crazy, doesn't it?" he murmured in response to Cynder's question.

"Absolutely insane," she declared; her beautiful green eyes were dark with horror: "How could he go about killing people like that just because you couldn't save Croiseau? And that was so long ago…"

"I know," Spyro said quietly; that thought had been haunting him for the past twenty-four hours, ever since he had killed Felador…

"I should have stopped him," Spyro whispered before he could help himself.

"Stopped who?" Cynder asked. Spyro shifted a little uncomfortably:

"Javert…I should've stopped him." Cynder gave him a look of immeasurable sympathy.

"Spyro," she said gently, "you weren't able to save him. There was nothing you could have done. He killed Croiseau before you knew — "

"I know," Spyro murmured, "but it doesn't help to know that if I had managed to stop him, this whole mess wouldn't have started…and my brother wouldn't be dead…" He hadn't meant to add that last part, but the words had escaped against his will. He found himself feeling even more melancholy than before. Cynder kissed him lovingly on the cheek.

"Spyro," she began in a soft voice, "a very wise dragon once told me that if you're always looking over your shoulder, you'll never be able to see where you're going. Let it go." Spyro looked at her and managed to smile weakly.

"I will, I promise." Cynder grinned at him and kissed him again, this time on the lips.

"At least it's all over now," she said once they split. Spyro nodded and turned his gaze back to the night sky. It was a soft, velvety black, studded with brilliant stars, stirred by a gentle breeze. The storms that had wracked the Temple for over a week had dissipated that morning — for good, it appeared. Spring was finally coming in full swing, and the night was pleasantly cool.

"Spyro?" Cynder asked him tenderly, "Are you okay?" Spyro looked at her and saw that her eyes were full of concern. The weird, soulful melancholy that was gripping his heart must have shown in his face.

"Yeah," he assured him, managing a second weak smile, "I just…I killed somebody last night, Cynder. Even if he deserved it…" He sighed. "I'm just gonna need some time to move on from that."

"Okay, Spyro," Cynder whispered; she snuggled a little closer to him and closed her eyes. "Good night." Spyro suddenly thought of all of the pain that he had put her through, and all of the grief that had been brought down upon her because he had been unable to stop Javert and unable to stop Felador, and he felt overwhelmed by remorse.

He knew what she would say if he were to voice that feeling, so he simply swallowed the tears that had been about to surface in his eyes and kissed her nose as gently and adoringly as he could.

"Good night, Cynder."

— — — — — *** — — — — —

"Actually, Spyro, I'm not very surprised at all," Doctor Ambulo confessed somberly; Spyro glanced at Cynder; their eyes met, and he could tell that she was thinking exactly the same thing:

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well," replied the doctor a little uncomfortably, "evidently his brother's death hit Felador hard. He was probably a very lonely child, disconnected from his cohorts, and his brother probably stuck up for him, stuck by him, and provided him with a solid connection to reality. With his brother gone, he simply…snapped."

"A fully grown dragon?" Cynder asked skeptically.

"Bodily size and organ development have no bearing on mental maturity," Ambulo told her darkly, "It is not surprising that he turned into a psychopath."

"Doc," said Spyro sadly, shaking his head, "I've known dozens of people who fit that description, and _none_ of them turned out like Felador."

"That's because psychology and neurology can only explain so much," Ambulo replied solemnly, "Above all of the psychoses, the deliria, the nerves and the hormones, above all of the biochemical anomalies, there is _evil_…pure and simple." Just then, there was a knock at the door. Spyro turned his head from where he sat, in the doorway to the balcony, and called:

"Enter." The door opened slowly, and Marius made his appearance; he had a queer look on his face, a mixture of consternation, nervousness, and wearied contentment. Over the intelligence officer's shoulder, Spyro could vaguely discern the figure of a tall, red-scaled dragon.

"My apologies for the interruption, sir," Marius muttered, "but there is someone here whom you should meet." He stepped aside, and the red dragon entered.

It was as though a fireball had entered the room: His entire body was coated in blazingly red scales ascending from vermillion hues to nearly white-orange towards his ears; his eyes beamed with golden radiance, and his entire form seemed to emit sparks and rays of light.

He was young – probably younger than Marius – but there was an indescribable perspicacity and maturity about him.

"My liege," the dragon introduced himself to Spyro, their eyes locking, topaz with amethyst, "I am Syntrofos." He paused before adding, "_King_ Syntrofos…King of Juzgara." Spyro felt shocked: How had he been elected so fast? Parcel had only died — barely a week ago!

"You're the new king?" Then, remembering how important and almost sacred that the throne was to the Juzgarans, he quickly added, "It is my honor to meet you, Your Majesty."

"The honor is mine, my liege," the king replied in a voice that sounded both humble and haughty at the same time, a voice full of the regality and authority of its position, yet resonant with the meekness of one who had never known power. It was the voice of the serpent and of the lamb. "I am glad that I may finally meet you, for of course I have heard much of you, my liege."

"Your Majesty," Spyro said in spite of himself, "you may dispense with the antonomasia: I would prefer that you address me as 'Spyro.'" Syntrofos gave him a very measured looked, almost as though he were weighing his prospects:

"Very well…Spyro," he said delicately, in a tone still full of proud obeisance, "Then you must consent to address me by my name as well." Spyro grinned.

"Agreed," he said happily. The young king smiled.

"His Majesty," Marius interpolated humbly, "assumed office three days ago, but he has been unable to get away until now."

"Of course," said Spyro, instantly sobered, "I am deeply sorry for all that has happened to your kingdom as a result of this tragedy, Syntrofos." He meant every word: He recalled Natalia – what felt like eons ago but what in actuality was merely a week – coming to him and telling him of the strange dragon who had visited Parcel, babbling about Croiseau, and how that dragon had likely been the perpetrator of the king's murder.

"As am I, Spyro," Syntrofos replied in a hard voice, though his eyes showed more frigidity than sorrow, "In fact, I came here to make a request of you." Spyro felt himself tense, though he did not know why.

"And that would be, Your Majesty?" he asked cautiously.

"I have heard – by way of sources too adventitious and convoluted to attempt to explain – that you have been investigating the assassination of my predecessor, and I might venture to bid you inform me of the progress of that enterprise." Spyro couldn't help but glance very briefly at Marius, who gave him a nearly imperceptible shake of the head.

Before Spyro could help himself, he spoke:

"Syntrofos, for security reasons, I cannot divulge _how_ I know this, but you have my solemn word that it is utterly and wholly true: Your assassin has been dealt with." Syntrofos looked at him quizzically – almost suspiciously – but he accept the response and bowed his head in thanks.

"As you say, my liege, and however it has come to pass, I am most grateful for his…elimination. Now, Spyro, if you will excuse me, I truly must be off — my people are in need of me at present."

"Of course," replied Spyro graciously, bowing his head. The dragon paused for a moment, then gave him a salute, and left. Marius shut the door behind him. It was then that he noticed a little satchel slung over his shoulder, in which was visible a single folder.

Somehow, Spyro knew what was in it…and his heart sank.

"Marius," he said quietly, "do you have something to show me?" Marius ducked his gaze.

"Yes sir," he murmured, pulling out the folder and placing it gingerly in front of Spyro.

"What is it?" asked Cynder, apparently sensing Spyro's somberness.

"A body count," Spyro answered her in a voice barely more than a whisper. Marius nodded in silent and lugubrious affirmation. Spyro glanced down at the folder, left it untouched, and looked back up at the intelligence officer.

"How many, Marius?" There was a long, tense, painful silence — then…

"Twenty-eight, sir…that we know of." Spyro nearly staggered, as though just as many blows had rained down upon his head: _Twenty-eight_?! "Actually, sir…it's probably thirty-one: The other three are murders in Vunoire that match Felador's MO but which have yet to be positively linked to him. Scabré, however, was confident of their culprit."

"Twenty-eight people…" Spyro murmured, only half hearing Marius: He felt sick. He had an overwhelming urge to vomit, weep, scream, and faint all at the same time, and he felt himself swaying on the spot; Cynder slid up to him and propped him up with her shoulder. He felt a single tear leak from his eyes.

The others remained silent while he composed himself.

"Are you sure?" he finally managed to choke out.

"Positive, sir," Marius replied in a deathly whisper, "I did the calculations myself, with all of the data that we have." He paused awkwardly before continuing out of what appeared to be a perceived necessity: "There are probably many more that we simply haven't discovered yet, sir, particularly if Felador, as all of the evidence suggests, had active for a while prior to his surfacing in Vunoire."

Spyro didn't want to hear that: He didn't want to hear that there might be more dragons – maybe even children – or even members of other species whose blood was on his head. He did not want to fear the discovery of any corpse anywhere, terrified that that may have been the product of the dragon that he had striven so hard and failed so miserably to stop.

He found himself crying quietly, tears dripping steadily from his face onto the warm stone beneath him. Cynder had wrapped her wing around him. Marius looked alarmed and dismayed.

"I — I'm sorry, sir," he stammered fearfully. "I didn't mean — "

"It's okay, Marius," Spyro said, surprised at the steadiness of his voice, despite the curtain of tears that veiled it, "Thank you…for all of your help. You stuck by me through all of this, these past nine or ten days, devoted yourself to this mission to a degree greater than any that I could have requested of you. Thank you."

"It was my job, sir," Marius deflected the praise awkwardly, almost blushing, "I…I have given my life to the service of my country, and I need no thanks for that."

"Maybe you don't need it," Spyro said with a weak smile, "but you've definitely earned it. I want you to take the day – no, the week – off." Marius began to object, but Spyro cut him off: "I absolutely insist, Captain." Marius stood speechless for a moment; then, he smiled thinly, and his face flooded with exhaustion.

"Thank you, sir…" He saluted and trudged from the room.

"Spyro," began Doctor Ambulo, who had remained silent the entire time, "will you be all right?"

"Yeah, doc…fine…" Ambulo did not appear convinced, but he took his leave anyway. Cynder immediately rounded on Spyro.

"Spyro — "

"I know what you're gonna say, Cynder," Spyro interrupted her wearily, "and…I know. It's just…twenty-eight…" He murmured the number miserably; all of the agony, all of the sorrow, all of the revulsion that he felt all flowed into that single number.

Cynder hugged him tenderly.

"I know, Spyro," she whispered, "but you've gotta let it go. It's over."

"No…it's not," said Spyro suddenly, lifting his head and staring deep into her beautiful emerald eyes. "It's not over," he repeated darkly, "Felador…he was only the beginning, the tip of the iceberg. The people who hired him, recruited him as their assassin, the people behind the Raven's Wing, they're still out there, Cynder.

"This isn't over: This is just the thunderclap before the storm."


	18. Epilogue & Author's Note

**EPILOGUE**

"A report, sir." Voynastraja looked up from his chessboard, not particularly thrilled at being interrupted.

"Yes?" he asked in a slightly waspish voice.

"It's Felador, sir…he's dead." Voynastraja did not reply; the messenger, looking exceedingly fearful, perhaps of retribution for his news, but he pressed on: "Sortolo has been captured, and the Raven's Wing has splintered — we're managing to hold it together, but — "

"That will not be necessary," Voynastraja cut across him silkily, delicately moving a pawn along the board to take another pawn, which he discarded ceremoniously in a little basket next to the board.

"S-Sir?"

"That will not be necessary," Voynastraja repeated calmly, "We will get a few affairs in order, and then we will liquidate that subsidiary to make room for another. The Raven's Wing was never central to the plan."

"And…and sir? S-Spyro…he is not dead…what of that?"

"Of course he's not dead, you fool; are you just now catching on to that?" Voynastraja snapped superciliously. The messenger cringed. "I have known that for five days." He shifted a knight on the board so that it was drawing nearer to the unsuspecting white king.

"And…this is not cause for c-concern…sir?"

"No," Voynastraja said airily, "Not at all. One must be prepared for such things… It is the nature of the game." As he said it, he moved one of the white team's pieces and then quickly countered with one of his own. "And one never takes the king…without losing a few pawns."

He moved a white knight to take one of his own pawns…opening the way for one of his bishops to slide into position.

Voynastraja smiled wickedly.

"Check."

**Author's Note**

Well, that's it for my first fanfic ever! I hope that the story has been both entertaining and insightful for you!

I do have a few things to say about it, however: Firstly, I've noticed that some of the chapter numbers and titles have become altered in their formatting; the numbers are all supposed to be bolded and underlined, with the chapter titles underlined, but some of them have changed for some reason; I do apologize. Secondly, of the reviews and comments that I have received, a rather unsettlingly large proportion insist upon pointing out to me inconsequential "incongruities" that do not actually exist; these incongruities are explained in the summary at the beginning of Chapter 1, so I suggest reading that before you post a review to such an effect; I only say this so that neither I nor you should have to waste his time. Thirdly, I realize that this story has a rather abrupt ending, and I would appreciate no reviews stating so (I am well aware of what I wrote); the entire assassination plot was simply a vehicle for the real thematic plot, which really came to its climax in Chapter 16, and honestly, if you didn't notice that, you weren't paying much attention!

Finally, there _is_ going to be a sequel to this fanfic, but I do not know when I will get the chance to write it: I am moving this summer, and I intend to take the summer to work on (if not complete) a full, publishable novel, a highly complex effort that will require most of my literary attentions. Unfortunately, that means that I will be going on a hiatus from FanFiction until that novel is finished; I will, however, be available for beta reading and reviewing and such, but I will not be able to continue this series until much later.

To those who have given me serious reviews, thank you for your input! (For those whose reviews have been less than mature or rather trivial, well...I have nothing to say...)

~Buizel Rubeda


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